Work Text:
The first thing that register is the dull, high-pitched whine in his ears. Pain is spread out through his body but it feels distant, disconnected, but it’s everywhere.
Something forces him to open his eyes and when he does, he sucks in a breath full of dust that sticks to his throat, makes him cough and his body reconnects, lighting a fire of agony all over. The floor he’s sitting on starts to move, spinning, tilting sideways.
He groans, curls in on himself, eyes screwed shut again.
“Commander, you all right?”
The voice and the hand on his shoulder happen simultaneously and his reaction is immediate.
The pain is shoved to the back of his mind and his hand finds the gun at his hip, brings it to bear and the stranger is in his gunsights in under half a second. He has to blink to bring the man into focus, and the image keeps wavering, fuzzing in the darkness, but his aim is steady. It’s not like he’d miss his mark at three feet anyway, but the dark, dusty... what is this place? It’s made of damp... dark... something. It’s not concrete... But there’s a more urgent question.
“Who’re you?” he growls, voice broken and rough from the dust still clinging to his throat. Why did the man call him Commander, he wonders, but he doesn’t ask. Like he doesn’t ask where they are.
The dark-skinned man’s got both his gloved hands up besides his ears, eyes wide. “Sir? Uh..”
“I said who are you!” he barks, louder, shallowing a wince when sharp stabs of pain lance through his head.
“It’s me, Junior, sir... Five-0? You, uh... You don’t... You don’t remember me?”
He looks at the face in front of him, knowing he doesn’t know it, but he thinks about it anyway. As soon as he tries, the pain in his head explodes into a cacophony of noise, light and pain, like hundreds of flashbangs and nails on chalkboards and kicks to the head... It suddenly feels like a giant vise is trying to crush his skull and he cries out in agony, the gun falling from his hands as he grabs at his head.
“Commander! Steve!”
He hears the name Steve being shouted, feels hands on his shoulders again, doesn’t have space to be concerned there’s a second potential aggressor with the Junior person. There’s no space outside the agony in his head. It grows until his brain is filled with white noise and burning light and it all reaches critical mass and explodes.
His head aches ferociously but the white noise is just a dull whine again the second time he opens his eyes. He doesn’t know where he is. The only thing he can see in front of his face is grimy, damp black... pitted stone. He swallows and coughs, groaning with pain as his head tries to explode again. The stone shifts, twists and deforms, blurs and spins dizzyingly so he shuts his eyes again, choking on a rush of nausea.
“Don’t try to move. You've got a head injury. It’s me. Junior. You remember me now? The team’s looking for us by now. They’ll be here soon.”
Team? What team? Who’s Junior? “Wh...” he mutters, blinking. Everything is so dark... stone, stone everywhere. “Where...?”
“We’re in a cave, near Manoa Falls. We were checking it, see if maybe our suspect was hiding in here when the earthquake hit. Collapsed part of the cave. We’re trapped.”
Nothing makes sense... Cave? Manoa? Suspect? What?
The pain in his head makes it impossible to think through the jumble of images and sounds constantly swirling in his brain; confusing flashes of people, places and bright lights.
“Commander? Steve?”
He lifts his head up a little, looks around, trying to find the third man, remembers the back man calling for this... Steve before, but there’s just the two of them. “Where... Steve?”
The black man, Junior, looks at him with his eyes wide. “uh... What...What do you mean... You’re here, sir.”
The whining in his ears grows louder and the cave blurs, fragments, disappears into a black hole.
The darkness is gone. In its place is an endlessly shifting, wavering blur of greens, browns and blinding white.
He’s riding perpetual waves of motion but there’s no water. He can’t see the blue of it and he can’t smell the salt of the ocean. Instead, he can smell wet earth and decaying vegetation.
The movement sparks dizziness, that sparks nausea, drawing a deep groan of discomfort from his throat. He can’t make sense of anything through the cacophony in his head. There’s too much... everything: pain, noise, light, movement, smells...
“He’s awake! Stop, stop. Let’s put him down. Careful, careful.”
The rolling waves stop and there’s a soft jolt. The greens and white and browns stop moving. A shape cuts into the blinding white above him. A soft, warm hand appears on his terribly aching head, shades his eyes.
“Commander, Can you hear me? Sir, can you hear me? Steve?”
The only response he gives is another inarticulate, distressed moan. He doesn’t understand what’s happening, where he is, why... who...
“Who...” he manages to articulate, through the haze of confusion and pain.
“It’s me. It’s Junior. You’re safe. We’re less than a mile from the Medevac landing site. We’ll get you to a hospital in no time, okay? Just rest.”
The static in his head surges with the pain but he forces the word out, closing his eyes. “N... No.”
“Sir? No... No Medevac?”
“N...no. Who’s... Who’s Steve?” he whispers just as the darkness swallows him again.
“What the Hell happened!” Detective Williams shouts when he shoves in the door of the waiting room. It bangs on the wall and loud thumping steps vibrate through the floor, stopping inches from him. He can see leather shoes an inch from his boots.
“Huh? What happened? And how in hell did you think moving someone that badly hurt was a good idea? He could be quadriplegic because of you!” Williams yells above him.
Junior lifts his head up, keeping his fingers laced behind his neck, meeting the angry, no, the livid gaze of the detective head-on, unflinching.
“We were clearing a cave when the quake hit. One of the cave walls destabilized and collapsed. Commander McGarrett was hit by falling rock and suffered a head trauma, as well as several other impact injuries.”
“And you had the bright idea to move him!”
“The Commander’s condition required it.”
“Oh, his condition required it, huh? Far as I know, you don’t have X-Ray vision! You. Could. Have Paralyzed him!” Williams shouts at him.
“Now Danny,” Grover tries to placate by his side, but Junior lifts his hand, silencing him. He can defend himself. He’s a fucking Navy SEAL. He knew exactly what he was doing when he made the decision to move his CO.
“With all due respect, sir, I cleared the Commander’s C-spine and performed a neurological examination before moving him. He was also initially alert and mobile. Howev--
“You-" Willams cuts in.
“HOWEVER,” he says loudly, over Williams, who’s trying to yell at him again, “his deteriorating state of consciousness, as evidenced by his decreasing Glasgow score prompted me to move him, because he was exhibiting signs of a moderate to severe TBI, for which prompt treatment is an absolute necessity for survival and optimal recovery. So I made the decision to move the Commander, to get him to medical help as quickly as possible, which is what I did,” he finishes firmly, looking deep into Williams’ eyes. As he expected, it’s not anger he sees. It’s fear and worry. “Also, Sir,” he bites out, “you weren’t there. The cave was unstable. We couldn’t stay there. I had to move him and believe me, I’m aware of the risks I took. But those are calculated risks and the only goal I had in my mind was saving Commander McGarrett’s life, Sir.”
He holds Danny’s gaze a little longer and as he expected, Danny deflates and lets his chin drop to his chest.
“I... Look I’m sorry for going off on you. I’m just...”
“Worried, I know. I know how much you care about him, D- anny,” he trips over the word, choosing the detective’s first name at the very last second.
“No, you don’t know. You can’t possibly know. You’ve known him for... what--”
“Fifteen months and sixteen days. With all due respect, again, you’re the one who doesn’t know how much he means to me.” Junior says, and damn it to hell, his voice cracks on the last word, but he pushes on. “When I got out of the sandbox last year, he... He knew. He knew I wasn’t doing all right. He checked up on me. He was my family when I didn’t have anyone to look out for me. He gave me a home. Did he tell you how I ended up staying at his house?” he asks after a bit.
Williams shakes his head. “No. He just told me he’d asked you to move it with him.”
Junior barks out a laugh and shakes his head. “Not exactly. He, ah, he found me in a, a homeless shelter. I had... I had nowhere to go. I couldn’t go to my family and, I’d just transitioned to the reserves and I didn’t...” Junior pauses, swallows and looks back up at Danny, at Steve’s best friend. “He knew what I was going through. He knew what I needed... before I did, he... Understood. He’s more than a mentor to me. He’s the man... I owe my life to him. So if you think I would do anything other than try and pay that debt back...”
Williams deflates, shakes his head and puts a hand on his shoulder and turns to sit by his side.
“Yeah, well, that’s what he does. He... fixes people. He adopts us, and... fixes us. Only problem is, he always manages to get himself hurt doing it.”
The amount of hurt and sorrow that suddenly weighs down on Junior’s shoulders bends his spine and his chin drops to his chest, his elbows coming to rest on his knees. “Yeah, well this time, it wasn’t his fault and it won’t matter anyway.”
“What, why? Why do you say that?”
“Because... Because the last thing he asked me was who he was. He didn’t know me, and he didn’t remember his own name.”
Williams pales and leans forward, putting his elbows on his knees, his head dropping forward. The late afternoon light hits his gold hair and it looks like a halo, beautiful, poetic almost. Junior doesn’t know why he notices. He’s not one to notice beautiful things, especially in times of tragedy.
He’s used to blood and dust, gunpowder and grime, not this... waiting.
“He’ll be all right,” Williams says, after a bit, drawing a deep breath, as if getting ready to go on one of his rants. “He always is. I dunno how he does it, how he manages or... what star he was born under, what... deity's watching out for’im up there but... Somehow? Despite attracting all the shit in the world... he comes out okay on the other end. At least... I gotta believe that.”
“Yeah,” Junior says.
There’s... something.
Close.
Points of lights in the thick folds of velvet dark.
Slivers of sound.
He can’t... grasp any meaning.
The darkness softens, lightens.
He feels... touch.
On his hand. Fingers, tight, on his.
A whisper in his ear. A name.
“Steve...”
The voice, soft, quiet... it spoke... A word. Steve... A spark ignites in his memory. His name!
The soft voice... it’s... there. In his memory too. A face. Blond hair.
“Steve, babe, can you hear me?”
He feels the hand on his squeeze, fingers rub the back of his hand, gentle. Coaxing.
He reaches within, remembers the name of the blond man, his friend.
“D...” His lips barely move, air scarcely moving across his lips.
“Babe. Yeah. That’s it! It’s me!”
“Danno.” It’s whispered, weak, barely there, but it is there.
He hears a soft laugh, and there’s a touch, on his face, gentle.
“Yeah, yeah, Steve. It’s me. Welcome back.”
He smiles.
FIN