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Danny sat on one of the bench seats on the lanai watching Steve as he tentatively stretched his way through a yoga routine. He almost smiled as he saw the frustration on his partner’s face. Steve wanted to swim, or jog or something, anything more aggressive than gentle yoga routines, but his body just couldn’t take it at the moment. Given his behavior over the last month, the damned fool was lucky that he was moving at all. It seemed every time that were a part of armed conflict, Steve wore the brunt of the reasonable force. Four times in four weeks he’d spent a night under observation in hospital. What had been even more astounding to Danny was that he quite willingly allowed himself to be hospitalized without so much as a complaint; it was almost as if he was happy to be there.
Steve’s recklessness had been bothering Danny, but as was his wont, Steve waved Danny’s concerns away no matter how much Danny ranted at him. So Danny had taken matters into his own hands. After a nasty fall whilst searching what should have been an abandoned office building. After four hours at the hospital, he had left Steve with a mild concussion and comfortably ensconced in a hospital bed for the night. He had stayed by Steve’s side until he was sure he was asleep and then left. He’d picked up dinner at a drive thru, went home to change clothes and returned two hours later to find Steve’s bed empty and cold. It was at that time that Danny had a light bulb moment of his own. He slipped out of the room and up the one flight of stairs to the children’s ward.
Padding slowly along the corridor, he couldn’t help the smile that creased his face as he drew closer to his Monkey’s room and could hear his partner’s voice. Leaning against the wall just outside the door Danny listened as Steve’s hoarse voice recounted their day’s activities to Grace, making the whole thing sound like a grand adventure, instead of the heart stopping drama of Steve being buried under a stack of falling crates. He wanted nothing more than to step into the room and see his little girl and tell his partner that it was okay, he didn’t need to throw himself under a train once a week so he could spend time with her. But he wouldn’t, not now.
He would wait for the right time and the right moment. He wasn’t going to take this from Steve. Instead he had stood for what seemed like hours until Steve’s voice had fallen silent. Only then had Danny poked his head around the edge of the door. His heart clenched so tightly that he was sure it stopped beating. His baby girl lay in the bed, looking for all the world like the beautiful angel that she was, sound asleep, and Steve’s head resting on the edge of the bed, his hand in hers, also sound asleep. Danny turned around and walked out of the hospital without looking back.
Danny had collected Steve in the morning and had been attentive and caring and just this side of a clinging annoying boyfriend. All day. Until Steve had finally grown tired of the cloying attention and had declared he was going to try some yoga. Danny had followed him outside his coffee in hand, happy to bide his time and watch his partner didn’t overdo it.
“Okay, I’ll bite.” Steve spoke, he was standing on the yoga mat his feet wide apart, bent double at the waist, he looked out at Danny from between his knees.
“Your own ass?” Danny snorted, “You don’t have much further to bend.”
“Mature.” Steve rolled his eyes as he stood and turned to look at his partner, right way up this time.
“I have no idea what you mean, Steven.” Danny answered, leaning back on the table.
“You’ve been tiptoeing around me all day. Go on give me the lecture. You know you want to.” Steve walked over to the table and took a mouthful of Danny’s coffee.
“Would it do any good?” Danny quirked an eyebrow at him in question.
“Probably not.” Steve grinned as he lowered himself onto the bench beside Danny.
“Then why would I waste my breath.” Danny leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.
“Never seemed to stop you before.” Steve breathed as he leaned back against the table.
“You know you don’t have to keep hurting yourself. I know what you’re doing.”
Steve stilled beside Danny, which told Danny all he really needed to know. “I can’t stop you visiting her, Babe. You don’t need to be so reckless with yourself.”
“I’m not doing anything.” Steve stood and paced across to the other side of the lanai.
“So the perfunctory searches, the reckless self-endangerment that’s my imagination is it?” Danny probed.
“That’s who I am Danny.” Steve shrugged.
“How long is this going to go on?” Danny stood. “Until the one time you’re not lucky enough to survive?”
There was a long silence, so long that Danny couldn’t bear waiting.
“Steven?” he asked his voice suddenly shaky.
“If that’s what it takes to get Gracie home.” Steve answered softly.
Steve’s words played over and over in Danny’s head, until they made sense to him. Until he realized exactly what Steve was saying to him.
“What. The. Everloving. Fuck. Steven?” Danny raged at him. Surging forward he pulled Steve around to face him and jabbed his finger into Steve’s chest. “You say that to my face you selfish bastard.”
Steve was silent, watching the ocean over Danny’s head, clearly trying to frame the words he wanted to use in his head before he vocalized them.
“Maybe they can take me instead of her. Give her back to you.” Steve shrugged.
“Who the hell are they?” Danny frowned, throwing his hands up in the air, he walked away from Steve and out onto the grass.
“God. The heavens. Karma. I don’t know. Whoever it is that is keeping her asleep and away from you.”
“So you’re what? Sacrificing yourself for me?” Danny looked at him incredulously. “You are such a selfish prick.”
“If that’s what it takes to bring her back.” Steve shrugged.
“Are you even listening to yourself? I should have you fucking committed.” Danny ranted. “Fuck that. I am having you committed. You really do have a fucking death wish. Nobody has her Steven, she is in a coma. She’s not kidnapped. She’s in a COMA.”
“I can always fix it. Always. I’m trained to be able to save everyone.” Steve rubbed his hands through his hair.
“You can’t fix this babe. She has to find her own way back.” Danny walked up to Steve and gently rubbed his back. “You can’t keep throwing yourself into harms’ way for this one. This is her fight not yours.”
“I thought maybe if I gave myself it would balance the ledger and she could come back.”
“It’s not your fault.” Danny sighed realizing the self-blame he was familiar with.
“If I hadn’t been in the way she wouldn’t have been thrown from the truck. If I hadn’t told her to hide she wouldn’t have been in there.” Steve responded blankly.
“No one blames you.” Danny growled. It wasn’t your fault.”
“I should have been dead. Not Grace.”
“She’s not DEAD.” Danny choked out.
“She may as well be.”
“You know, I’m barely hanging on by a thread here, big guy, wishing my little girl dead and you throwing yourself under every truck that passes isn’t making this any easier on me.”
“You need her more than you need me. I see you fading away right before me.” Steve turned and pulled Danny into his arms.
Danny pushed Steve away and walked a few paces across the lanai. “Did I ever tell you about Great Aunt Beryl?”
Steve frowned, “No.”
“When I was 16, Beryl just fell down in the street one day. She spent almost a year in a coma. Strangest thing, she woke up and it was like it was the same day. She had physical issues sure but still as sharp as a tack.” Danny paused, “So yes it hurts me that my little girl is in her current condition, but she’s still alive and there is hope that she won’t be affected. But I can’t do this alone. So I need you to promise me that you will stop with this death defying shit right now.”
“Well…” Steve started.
“Alright, I don’t want to see anything outside of your normal daily insanity.” Danny conceded.
“Done.” Steve nodded and opened his arms to Danny and waited until he walked into them before he pulled the smaller man tightly against him.
“I’m not going to apologize for spending time with Grace.” Steve spoke against the top of Danny’s head.
“I don’t want you to babe. I love you for it, spend all the time you like there, just stop trying to swap places because you know when you were both there it wasn’t exactly the happiest week of my life.”