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He should've known better.
It had seemed like such an easy thing at the time. He'd done thousands of jumps. He'd trained other tandem masters. Hell, he'd performed midair rescues. One little tandem jump was the easiest thing in the world.
Except nothing was easy when it came to Danny.
Steve bolted out of his seat as the door to the ER exam rooms opened, but the nurse who came out looked right past him. He dropped back down into the chair, replaying the jump in his head for the hundredth time. Everything had been textbook right up until the last 500 feet.
When he'd felt the sudden jerk in the line, he'd compensated. He'd barely even registered Danny's, "What the hell was that?" as his training had kicked in and he'd made all the right adjustments and they slowed down as the ground approached. But he'd known the landing wasn't going to be pretty, and while Steve had done plenty of parachute landing falls--in practice and out of real necessity--Danny hadn't, aside from a few minutes of training on them just before the jump.
So he'd yelled commands at Danny to remind him, and done his best to absorb the impact himself as they landed. He'd succeed, too, as the bruising up the side of his leg and across his hip could attest. He'd done everything he could.
He just hadn't quite been able to protect Danny enough.
Danny's shriek upon landing had terrified Steve until Danny had responded with a pained "I'm not dead," at Steve's third and somewhat panicked "Danny?" But it wasn't until Steve had gotten gear off both of them and rolled Danny over so Steve could get up that he realized the problem.
"Fuck!" Danny had said, hands wrapped protectively around his knee, his face a mask of pain. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"
Steve had knelt down beside Danny. "Can you move your leg?" he'd asked, trying to move Danny's hands out of the way so he could look.
"Don't touch it!" Danny had backhanded Steve's arm.
"What happened?"
"It feels like someone shoved a fucking laser through my knee and left it there," Danny had ground out.
Which was so much better than what Steve had originally feared as they were hurtling towards the ground, and yet still so incredibly bad.
Because it was all Steve's fault.
The ER exam room doors opened again, and Steve jumped up, recognizing the doctor. Kalia? Kailua? No, Kailani, Steve read on his coat as he got closer.
"Commander," Dr. Kailani said, "wish I could say it was good to see you again."
"Likewise, doc." He jerked his head towards the closed doors. "How is he?"
"He'll live."
Which was a relief, but Steve had been pretty convinced of that, once he'd stopped torturing himself with all the possible internal injuries Danny might have had from the fall and just hadn't noticed yet because of the pain in his knee. "But?"
"His ACL is torn pretty badly. I know from his file he's had trouble in the past and worked through it, but I don't think he's going to be able to avoid surgery this time."
Which was not a relief. "You don't think?"
The doctor shook his head. "I'm not a betting man, Commander, but I'd put money on surgery with this one," he said. "I've told him to see Dr. Oh on Monday, since he's familiar with Detective Williams' knee, but I expect he'll schedule surgery once he sees it."
"So why not just do it now?"
"There's no rush to do it today, and it won't hurt to have a specialist who knows him look at it, just to be sure."
Steve took a deep breath and let it out slowly, adrenaline slowly flowing out of him as it sunk in that Danny was going to be fine. Relatively speaking. "So can he go home now?"
Dr. Kailani nodded. "He's in exam room three if you want to go collect him."
Steve hesitated. "How mad is he?"
The doctor laughed. "He's a little too high to be mad," he said. "But when the painkillers wear off, I'm not making any promises."
"You prescribed more, right?"
He nodded. "Detective Williams has more painkillers and some anti-inflammatories that should help until Monday. I've talked to Dr. Oh's service and they've promised to have his office find an appointment for him first thing Monday morning and call Detective Williams with the time."
"Okay. Thanks, doc."
Steve shook his hand before going through the doors to find Danny. He was waiting in exam room three, as promised, his knee immobilized in some kind of contraption and crutches leaning against the bed. "There you are," Danny said, giving Steve a blinding smile. "I kept telling them I couldn't believe you hadn't bullied your way back here."
He'd tried once, actually, but the nurse by the doors, being far too familiar with him, had said she would personally dose him with a sedative if he went through the doors before the doctor told him to. And he knew Palakiko well enough to know not to test her. "I have some self control," Steve said.
"Yeah, right. Let me guess, Palakiko threatened you?"
"Are you ready to go?" Steve asked, ignoring the question and the fact that they both knew Tripler way better than they really should.
"Since when am I not ready to leave a hospital?" Danny slid awkwardly to his feet--or foot, Steve thought, as he move forward to help. "I can do it myself," Danny said, waving him off.
Steve bit his lower lip, watching as Danny settled himself between the crutches. When Danny nearly fell, Steve took an automatic step forward, but Danny glared at him, and he froze.
Apparently the painkillers didn't make him one hundred percent docile.
"I've got it," he said, steadying the crutches underneath him and moving forward slowly.
A nurse met them at the door, one Steve didn't recognize. "Detective Williams, we've got a wheelchair for you."
"I'm fine," Danny grumbled. It wasn't up to his usual full bark, but it was enough to make the nurse glance nervously between them.
"You know the drill as well as I do," Steve said. "They're not going to let you out of here unless it's in that chair, so sit down and let's go home."
Danny glared at him, but he did as he was told. Score one for the drugs, Steve thought.
The silence of the walk down the hall extended into the drive home. It was eerily reminiscent of their first day together, after Danny had been shot. Steve could still feel the ghost of Danny's punch to his jaw, and hoped this wouldn't go quite as badly.
Steve kept stealing glances at Danny, but he was looking out the window, his face mostly hidden from Steve's view, and adjusting the wing mirror to see Danny's face might be a little obvious. If Danny was planning to yell at him over the accident, Steve didn't want to add fuel to the fire. And the longer Danny was silent, the more Steve was sure there was a fire.
Only when Steve pulled up to the house and stopped the car did he realize why Danny was silent. He was out like a light. Danny, who never slept when Steve drove because he 'needed to be awake to give HPD an accurate account of the horrific accident Steve was inevitably going to cause' was asleep.
Unless he really did have a head trauma and he'd passed out. "Danno," Steve said softly, shaking Danny's shoulder.
"Mmm?"
"You okay?"
Danny shook his head a little, turning his head to blink at Steve. "What happened? Did you wreck the car?"
Steve rolled his eyes. "No, I did not wreck the car. We're home. What's wrong with you?"
"Drugs," Danny said, sounding a little like his tongue didn't know what it was doing trying to form words. "Make me sleepy."
"You're sure that's all it is?"
"Yes, Steven," Danny muttered. "I always feel like this when they dose me with this stuff. You know, the stuff they wouldn't dose me with until they'd done a million tests to ensure that my brains were still where they belonged. Ergo, I know I'm fine. Half of Tripler knows I'm fine. I'm sure word has spread to Queen's by now, too."
Steve rolled his eyes, only slightly less worried, as Danny was still slurring his words a little. "If you're bringing out the ergo," Steve said, "clearly you're fine."
"What did I just tell you?"
"Okay, then, let's go inside."
Steve climbed out of the Camaro and grabbed the crutches from the back seat. He was around to the passenger side door before Danny could even get it all the way open. He refrained from leaning in and helping, holding the door so Danny could lean on it and holding out the crutches to try to make it easier without pissing Danny off.
Danny's look said he knew what Steve was doing, but he didn't say anything. He made his way slowly into the house, Steve a few steps ahead. He stopped himself from helping Danny over the threshold but couldn't keep himself from saying, "Watch the step."
One long look and a sigh was all he got before Danny went carefully through the door. When it was closed, Steve leaned against it for a second, watching Danny slowly make his way across the room to the stairs. Only when he was close to the bottom step did Steve join him.
Danny twisted his neck to look at Steve over his shoulder. "You are not carrying me up the stairs."
"I wasn't going to even suggest it," Steve said, hands up, palms facing Danny. Not that he hadn't had the idea in his head of throwing Danny over his shoulder and carrying him up the stairs instead of watching him go up step by agonizing step, but he knew Danny would shove the crutch up Steve's ass in retaliation, so he didn't dare.
"Good. Because I'd hate to have to embarrass you by kicking your ass with one leg tied behind my back. So to speak."
Steve sighed loudly and dramatically. "Can I at least follow you up the stairs to make sure you don't fall down them? Or should I just get out of the way?"
"You can, but only because I want the joy of falling on you if I do."
The way Steve had fallen on Danny in the roll that had torn his ACL. Steve took a quick breath, holding back his apology and just gave Danny a curt nod. Danny frowned at him, then shook his head and started up the stairs.
He could tell Danny was feeling the pain by the time they were halfway up, his hands tighter on the grips of the crutches than they needed to be, knuckles white, his body stiffly trying to absorb all the shock anywhere and everywhere but his right knee. Steve knew if he could see Danny's face he'd be biting his lip to make it through the climb.
Fuck this, he was carrying Danny from now on if this was what it was going to be like. Danny paused at the top of the stairs, and Steve could see him breathing, even from behind, his whole body moving with each breath, working through the pain. "Painkillers they gave you in the hospital wearing off?" Steve asked.
Danny nodded as he resumed his slow procession to the bedroom. "A little. Though really nothing can kill this entirely. Never could right after it happens, and this one...."
He didn't have to finish; Steve already knew it was the worst one yet. "Just a few more steps and you can get off it," he said, as Danny walked through the bedroom door. He took the last few steps and used the crutches to lower himself onto the bed, wincing has his knee tried to bend despite the brace.
Steve took the crutches and tucked them between the bed and the nightstand, within easy reach if Danny needed them. He clasped his hands behind his back to avoid reaching out and trying to help as Danny laid back on the bed, situating his knee with a lot of muttered cursing.
"Okay?" Steve asked, when Danny had settled.
Danny looked up at him. "I'll live," he said, a hint of a smile finally showing up on his face. "So stop with the face."
Steve tried to freeze all his facial muscles into a blank mask. "What face?"
"That face," Danny said with a soft laugh. "The 'I'm going to go flog myself fifty times for nearly killing Danno' face."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
Danny patted the bed beside him. "Come down here, you giant goof."
Steve sat on the bed carefully, trying not to jostle Danny. "I'm sorry."
"Stop." Danny's hand found Steve's, bringing it up to rest on Danny's stomach and holding it there. "I agreed to the jump, you know. Signed my life away, had a bunch of training, and plenty of time to back out."
"You also said, 'If you break my leg, Steven, I'm never going to forgive you.'"
"Oh, and I always mean everything I say," Danny said, rolling his eyes. "Anyway, you didn't break my leg."
Steve swallowed carefully. Of course he knew Danny hadn't meant it, it was just.... "I didn't know if you were okay," he said slowly. "When we first landed. You didn't answer, and I...."
"I know. Sorry, I was just--I couldn't get anything out at first."
"I know." He couldn't explain, though, how every time anything happened Danny was the first one he called out for, the one he had to always make sure was okay. Not that he wanted anything to happen to anyone on his team--he'd be devastated if it did. But if something happened to Danny....
Devastated would be mild by comparison.
"It's just a ligament, Steven," Danny said softly. "It can be fixed."
"I know."
"Then stop it."
Steve nodded, even though he didn't know how to stop worrying, and he didn't know how to explain that either. It had nothing to do with Danny's ability or skills--he wouldn't have partnered with Danny in the field if it did, no matter how much Steve had wanted him personally the first time he'd laid eyes on him.
No, he fully trusted Danny, he just didn't know what he'd do if something happened to Danny. It had taken a bomb almost killing them both for him to realize just how much he couldn't stand the thought of life without Danny Williams in it.
How did you explain that to someone without scaring the hell out of them?
But then, he was always the first one Danny checked on, too. Danny bitched Steve out at length for taking stupid risks and then put himself right in the middle of it to protect Steve anyway. Danny had been truly pissed--not his usual ranting, but real, solid anger--when Steve had made himself a target for a sniper who wanted nothing more than to kill him.
Maybe he didn't need to explain it after all.
"You want another pain killer?" Steve asked.
"Soon," Danny said. "I need a nap while this one's still working."
He pulled on Steve's arm, tugging him onto his back, then pulling on him until Steve was arranged to Danny's satisfaction, with Danny draped half over him. It didn't look comfortable, the way he was twisted up, but the way Danny melted into him a little, his breathing evening out, it apparently was perfectly comfy.
"I'm not a teddy bear," Steve said, but he couldn't even manage a fake annoyance in his voice.
"Shut up," Danny muttered against Steve's shirt. "Get some sleep. You're going to need it later to wait on me hand and foot."
"I thought you didn't want any help."
"Getting around, no." He felt Danny smile a little. "But ordering you around to bring me stuff? That's the stuff dreams are made of, my friend."
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END