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It was nasty, the smell of the hospital. Every damned time. In fact it was the Pits of the Earth, an unholy trinity of chemical cleaning, bodily fluids, and tension. Nasty.
Danny had registered his whereabouts in disgust several times already. He’d come to irritated, not wanting to stick around. Groggy for sure, but still resigned to being somewhere he wouldn’t be if he’d never left New Jersey in the first place. But still, he was over that, the whole never should have left New Jersey in the first place thing. Mostly. Whatever he said to anyone else, he was mostly over that.
Not happy about waking up in here though, not happy at all. You always knew life had tipped badly sideways when you woke up in here.
There were dead things in his mouth for a start. Also, a deeply annoying encumbrance prickling the crook of his elbow. Also also? He didn’t like how the figure sitting close at his side was taking so long to un-scramble.
There was other stuff, too, as yet just out of reach. Danny's gut told him it was important, profound stuff he needed to know over and above having dead things in his mouth.
“My kids,” he managed to get out. Grace and Charlie hadn’t even been a coherent thought, but turned out they were there, front and center. Just as they should be.
“Hey,” the figure at his side said, finally coming into focus, and Danny felt a welcoming nudge against his bare arm. “There you are.”
It was really, really good to see Chin.
Danny was suspicious of his trying-very-hard smile, though. He felt a sharp sense of discontent. Jeez but the man looked rough. Crumpled, exhausted, his whole smoothly chiseled face tight with tension. Even the way he was sitting round-shouldered in the chair by the bed was rough.
“Kids,” Danny said to him again, more forcefully this time.
There was a pat of cool fingers against his uncomfortable hospital skin.
“Yeah, they were here before, Danny. Couple times. Don’t you remember?”
“Maybe.”
Danny didn’t really remember, not for sure. Nothing solid for sure since he’d been staring up at the bright lights on the ceiling in the OR. He’d been chilled at the time, counting backwards to oblivion, ready for the knife.
The knife.
Danny curled his fingers against the sheet. He had a sudden memory of another scrambled figure, a tall blue-shrouded one standing over him, mask dangling round its neck. Everything’s fine, its mouth had told him, garbled. He guessed he’d been in recovery at the time. The space around him there had been darker, warmer, full of murmuring. It’s all fine. Just breathe nice and easy for me. You’re fine.
“Yeah, maybe,” he said again.
Chin gave a soft sigh. He let him adjust for a moment, then filled in one of the gaps.
“Rachel brought Charlie in once we knew things had gone okay. Then when he and Grace had seen you breathing, and we explained the crap you were talking at them was just the drugs, she took them home. They needed to sleep, those little guys.”
“Sleep?”
“Yeah, sleep.” A faint grin touched Chin’s face at the echo. “We’ve been waiting on you for a while. But they were here, Danny. You made them laugh, and it was all good, so don’t worry.”
Danny wasn’t really worried. Not about that. He’d just needed the affirmation. There was something else he was worried about, though. It was making itself known now under the layer of pain-free, post-operative wooze. A heavy, slow-gripping sensation had begun high up in his chest. He knew it was nothing to do with the gripe of cracked ribs, or even the pile of stitches they’d gouged into him, which, right now, he couldn’t precisely locate. No, not that. Danny tried to fix on the something else, but Chin didn’t let him get there.
“You know, that was some stunt you pulled, bro.”
The notion he was a trick pilot entertaining tourists on the beach was actually quite funny. Danny might even have huffed a laugh if he’d been physically capable, only Chin sounded as wrecked as he looked, still in shock. Oddly there was something else in his voice, too, Danny could hear it. Something that sounded a lot like awe. Actual awe at his awesomeness. Which just made Danny want to say something inappropriate.
“Right,” was all he did say.
“No, really. That was... that was a good job.” Chin shook his head in wonder at the crashing inadequacy of his own description. “Trashing ATC’s advisory – spectacular. Dumping a plane on the beach? Insane, but way impressive.” The voice became idiotic with respect again. “Shit, everything you did, man, from start to finish.” And he gestured tiredly at the whole State of Danny Williams. Lying there in a hospital bed with a badly crumpled ribcage and facial contusions. Not to mention a wicked (and wholly unexpected) incision up his midline.
Yes, everything. From start to finish.
Danny cataloged it all in his head, seeing as he couldn't fix on what he wanted to fix on.
Flying a stupid aircraft full of holes. Not ditching it as instructed by people who knew what they were talking about better than him. Landing the damned useless pile of metal with no fuel, no power, and no landing gear, thereby busting himself up so badly he could hardly breathe. Offering flesh and blood he’d really rather have kept to himself for a major, life-saving operation – just to round off the whole shitty day.
And then it came to him like an arrow through the heart.
“Steve,” Danny said, and he wanted to sit up but couldn’t.
For a split second he was consumed with relief he’d finally fixed on the elusive something. Then the gripping sensation in his chest was back, right at the site where the arrow had struck.
“Steve?” he said again, helpless. A fleeting, giveaway expression had flickered across Chin’s face at the name, the kind of good-for-nothing fleeting expression Danny could read in an instant, even high on painkillers, because he was a cop down to his bones.
“He’s… yeah, so he’s not doing so good right now.”
The words, deflated, seemed to come out against Chin’s better judgement. As if he’d actually been preparing to say something else entirely. Something with the weasel word ‘fine’ in it.
What did that even mean anyway, ‘not doing so good’?
Danny felt a rant bubbling – he could just hear Grover telling everyone to keep it buttoned – but he snagged Chin’s sleeve, tight, and growled, “Tell me,” at him.
Chin fluffed like he expected to be called on his bullshit. “Steve’s a little rough.”
“Jeez,” Danny said, dizzy with it, hating anxiety on top of drugs. “That son-of-a-bitch.” He was hearing gunfire against metal again, smelling copper, seeing the fight sliding out of McGarrett with every passing second, pooling dark on the floor under the seat. His pulse ticked unreasonably fast. Chin was staring at one of the monitors, ready to rise.
“Listen, you’re not to get over-excited,” he warned, hand pressing down on Danny’s arm, hard. “I’m supposed to be keeping you calm and getting you to rest.”
“Don’t even,” Danny warned back. He wouldn't have minded bursting into snotty tears in front of Chin, but a good part of him was still back in the plane, battling for control. He took a deep, slow, shaky breath, pushing back against the pressure on his arm. He really didn't want to grapple with Chin, set off alarms, or to feel this panic roaring towards him like a train. Steve had taught him how to handle it, hadn’t he? Or at least try. “That son-of-a-bitch,” he repeated, and exhaled long and careful. In for four. Out for four.
His arm was slowly released as he breathed himself down.
“Listen, so you should know,” Chin said, weary. “Steve’s back in the ICU. Has been since a few hours ago.”
“Back in there?” Danny was still making leaps between the plane, the beach, the bus, and the OR.
“He was doing fine before, really fine, just like you.” Chin didn’t seem to understand it himself. “No problems during the op, vital signs stable. Kono saw him in recovery, said he was peaceful, breathing well, had a good color. The plan was for him to come in here with you.”
Well, yeah.
“He hadn’t woken up,” Chin plowed on, “but they weren’t too concerned after everything that happened. But then, things began to go South.”
Oh, God. Danny didn’t want to hear about South.
“I knew it,” he said, the fury redoubled, giving him a new strength. “He doesn’t listen to me. He’s never listened to me. When has he ever listened to me?”
He tossed his head, resumed the clean breathing, blew through closed lips so his cheeks puffed out.
“Take it easy.” Chin stroked his arm, gentler now, and that was bad. That was really bad.
Danny shut his eyes until his heart rate leveled out. When he dragged them open again he managed in a croak, “So? Are we, like, at officially worried here or what?”
“Lou wanted to keep the worry contained.”
“I’m shocked by that, let me tell you.”
Chin looked faintly relieved at the acid. “Yeah,” he said.
“Is McGarrett rejecting my liver now? Is he really doing that?” Danny turned his arm over, plucked at the tape holding down the line into his elbow. He nailed Chin with a look. “I have to see him, you do know that, right?”
“Nuh uh.” Chin frowned, stayed his hand with some force. “Quit that. What do you think we’re all doing here? Listen to me, Danny, we have his back. Kono’s in there right now, she’s with him, all right?”
“No, not all right,” Danny said. His face felt unnaturally hot. “Really, really not all right. What the hell’s going on with him anyway, why is he doing this?”
“Man’s a mess, Danny. He took three bullets.”
There was a rawness about Chin’s tone, as if his checks and balances had ceased to function.
“So I did... I did notice that.”
“Two were still in him, the other tore a couple more holes. And then there was the transplant. Trauma overload, the docs said.” Chin swallowed. “They’re working to stabilize him.”
“I need to get out of here.” Danny felt another drug-laden flush of fear and frustration. Tugged at the line again.
“No, no, no you don’t, you really don’t. You’re busted up bad too, never mind you just had half an organ removed. What the hell use is it going to be if you go bleeding and falling down on the floor, huh? I should never have...” Chin stopped himself mid-sentence.
He'd know Danny wouldn’t forgive that kind of cover-up, the kind Grover had doubtless counseled. Lou's motives would have been pure, protective ones, sure they would - the man was a lionheart after all. But although Lou was starting to get how insanely ohana worked in this particular outfit, he wasn’t quite there yet.
“In that case,” Danny puffed at him, blood running a little crazy. “I need you go find me a doctor. Go find someone in blue to tell me exactly what’s going on. Can you do that?”
“Sure.” Chin was mollifying. “I can do that, but you’re to stay put here all right?” He frowned, suspicious. “You promise me? We really, really don’t need you taking yourself out too.”
Every fiber in him was straining to get out of the bed and get to Steve, but Danny stayed put. He promised Chin, and he stayed put.
Let the arrow carry on piercing his chest.
*
It was Doctor Cornett who came.
The man looked as if he’d just arrived back on shift – all neat and tidy, but braced for pressure. Danny vaguely wondered how long ago he’d been standing in the recovery room over him wearing the mask and garbling that it was all fine.
“This kind of surgery,” Cornett began, addressing them all. Lou, Chin and Kono had all shuffled through the door and were bunched around Danny’s bed like a guard detail, albeit one that had been dragged through several hedges. “It can be very tough on the whole system. And that applies to you too, Detective. We’ve given you both a complex spectrum of drugs – especially Commander McGarrett. As I told you, he was badly cut up by the bullet to the torso and his body needs the extra help to accept new organ tissue.”
Danny was too tired to speak. He just wanted to know how bad it could turn out, not about organs, spectrums, tissues, and drugs that probably did just as many negative things as positive ones. However, he was painfully aware of his own limits. He lay quiet as he could stand without actually combusting, hand in Kono’s.
“Is the boss rejecting Danny’s liver?” she suddenly asked, as if that now seemed completely obvious.
“We can’t say for sure at this early stage, Officer Kalakaua.” Cornett was as soothing and proper as he always was. Calm to the point that Danny’s eyes wanted to slide shut most times, never mind doped-up on narcotics.
“OK.” Kono’s hand was clammy.
“Even if it were so, it could be some weeks before the issue of rejection became certain. No, the high fever your Commander McGarrett has developed, the symptoms of respiratory distress and so forth... we think he's just struggling to cope. His surgery was complicated by the amount of shrapnel we had to remove for a start. Then again, while the wound in his arm wasn’t serious, the entry wound on his left side, and the thigh wound, both did some damage. Very similar to battlefield injuries in many ways. He’s overwhelmed right now, having to fight on several fronts at once.”
Danny would have liked to point out that in fact their Commander McGarrett had the constitution of a particularly bone-headed ox, and that he was more than capable of fighting multiple enemies on a butt-load of fronts when he wanted to - but he got the feeling that him being punchy wouldn’t be appreciated right now. Not by anyone.
“Can I see him?”
Cornett was very faintly cranky. “I would say that is highly inadvisable at the moment, Detective Williams.”
“You would,” Danny said, gripping Kono’s hand too tight. “You would say that. But can I see him?”
“Danny,” Kono pleaded, gripping back, “We really need you to get better.”
It wasn’t like her to be so dense. Or to sound so tearful.
“Well, the getting better might happen,” Danny explained, “if I could see him, you follow me? From the face on every single one of yous I can tell he's in a bad way, like, a really shit way. Which in my world means I absolutely need to see him. Now.”
Cornett pinched the bridge of his nose and Danny felt momentarily sorry for him. To be fair, the guy had dealt with Five-0 enough times to give him permanent indigestion. He would know how they treated certain rules and protocols (not to mention everyday good sense) as elastic concepts. And he would know they were like a headstrong and persistent herd of elephants when it came to looking after one of their own.
However. Turned out Cornett had his own brand of toughness. As well, apparently, as a great line in emotional blackmail. Which, for all it worked in blocking him, was something Danny could respect.
“Detective Williams,” the doctor said. “I think my team did a damned good job with this transplant. I mean, yours was excellent, healthy tissue – for which the Commander should thank you – but we needed to do a good job. And we did, on you both. It really would go against all my instincts for you to put that in jeopardy by placing unnecessary stress on yourself. Listen, I understand your anxiety and I can’t pretend Commander McGarrett isn’t in a very serious condition. I can't pretend we're not extremely concerned for him. But everyone – and probably him more than most – actually does need you well.”
Him more than most?
That son-of-a-bitch!
“When then?” Danny responded, having already allowed the main point to trickle through his fingers. “When can I see him?” The world was becoming a little fuzzy around the edges, the tug of sleep incessant.
“As soon as my nursing staff tell me you can. Which may not be until tomorrow.”
“And if he gets worse in the meantime?” Danny struggled to keep his focus, although he saw both Cornett and Grover make pained faces at him. “I know, I know, it’s me being me. But if. If he gets any worse?”
There was a silence, a collective prayer, maybe, that Cornett would sweep him aside with soothing assurances that getting worse was not an option. But he didn’t.
“Comes to it, Danny,” Lou rumbled, fierce. “We’ll get you to him.”
*
Grace was there first thing in the morning, before school, with Charlie and a blue truck.
Danny was groggy and sore, had hallucinated all manner of crap in the depths of a strange night. Dae Won had been pointing a gun at him in the OR at one stage. Then Kamekona, in voluminous scrubs, had rocked up to insist there was absolutely no fentanyl in the shrimp, bruddah, not one speck.
“How am I looking?” he asked.
“Hung over,” Grace said, but he didn’t have the energy to ask how she knew what a hangover looked like and when she’d ever seen him with one. She stroked his head and asked, “Where’s Uncle Steve? Wasn’t he supposed to be here?”
“Uncle Steve, as you know, is not nearly as tough and strong as me,” Danny told her, lips crusty as an old battery. “So he’s sleeping in some more. Don’t worry about him. You go have a good day at school, monkey. And you,” poking Charlie who was running the truck up his blanketed leg, “go play, go knock yourself out with the non-stop fun.”
“Great kids,” one of the nurses said when they’d gone.
“Can I go see my partner?” Danny replied, breath hitching. “Yes, they are. Great kids. I really need to go see my partner.”
“You had kind of a restless night, Detective.”
There was a clash coming, Danny could feel it. Lou Grover had appeared in the doorway, face unsmiling and fatigued. “Yeah, I did,” Danny said. “Lou, how’s Steve?”
“Hanging in there.”
Another worryingly uninformative bulletin.
Grover turned his attention to the nurse, waved a big hand at Danny. “And how’s my man here?”
“Doing well, considering.”
“OK,” Danny said, snapping his fingers. He lifted his head and shoulders from the pillow, felt the yank of the stitches. “I’m doing well. Get me a chair. Get me to the ICU.”
She frowned, harried. “I really think we need to discuss this with-”
“So help me, if you don’t get me a fucking chair – please – I swear I will get out of this bed right now and have this big guy carry me there.”
“Hold on,” Lou began, alarmed, but the nurse intervened.
“All right,” she said. “All right, all right.”
“Good. Thank you.” Danny flopped his head back on the pillow as she went out, saw Grover looming over him with one of those looks on his face. “Don’t start.”
“Hey,” Grover said, crisp. “After what you did for him?” He looked Danny over, like Chin had yesterday, mapping the damage, and his shoulders sagged. “I love your grumpy ass, brother. You want me to carry you, I’ll fucking carry you.”
“Are you kidding me?” Danny said. “I want the chair.”
Grover snorted.
*
They’d warned him, of course. Told him about all the tech and tubes, the pneumatic shush of the ventilator, the insistent blip of the heart monitor. Explained McGarrett was still on the life-critical list, not responding how they’d hoped.
It didn’t cushion any of it. Not the reality of seeing him - him - swamped by machinery, unrecognizable.
“Oh Jeez, you,” Danny said through the glass. In his imagination Steve existed in permanent, blazing, fight-back mode, always upright, always pushing through.
But this.
There was a nurse in there wearing surgical gloves, twiddling knobs, flicking lines. He moved with clinical care and efficiency. Steve lay long and still, unmoving beneath the tentacles of tech. Pushed back against the far wall was a sad padded chair.
“No change from last night,” Grover said heavily.
“And what? So you just stand out here and stare at him?” Danny was testy. His ribs jangled. The nurse who'd accompanied them was antsy at his back. “Has anyone been in to hold his hand at least?”
Not that he could quite see Steve’s hand from here.
Danny felt Grover’s grip tightening on the wheelchair.
“Believe me, we’ve been in. When they’ve let us.”
“Staff need clear access at all times, both direct and visual,” the nurse said. She sounded sympathetic but firm. “Personal contact is good, but not too much.”
“Let me tell you," Danny said, near truculent. "Now is a good personal contact time." He figured maybe he was being a dick, but another thing the sleeping Neanderthal giant in there had taught him was that when you wanted something important done, you had to handle it your way.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
There was a short conversation just inside the ICU room. Hand movements, explanations. The moment Danny lip-read ‘Five-O’ the ICU nurse glanced through the glass at them, gave a nod.
Danny felt both cold and old as Grover wheeled him and his portable IV through the door and across to Steve's bed. It was cool in here, as if they were keeping him on ice. The ICU nurse whispered something to Grover as they passed.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” Lou said in Danny’s ear, positioning the stand. “But you ain’t got long. I’ll hold them off long as I can.” Danny felt the curl of a blessedly warm hand around his shoulder.
When the door had clicked shut, he sucked his teeth. Now he was in here he didn’t know where to look.
Slowly he let his gaze travel from the twin mounds of feet under a white blanket, past the telltale signs of bandaging to one thigh, up over the heavy dressing on stomach and midsection, the brace holding the injured left arm, glimpses of ink, bruises on one collarbone, probably from the safety belt on impact, the well-known scruff of jaw, and the queasily unfamiliar pallor. There was broad tape holding head and airway in place, and a mask obscuring the ugly intubation paraphernalia.
The respirator shushed, rhythmic.
“Would you look at the state of you?” Danny blurted out. His eyes stung. He knew Mary McGarrett was on standby to fly in, but he found himself bitter to his core that neither Doris nor Catherine was here. Or even knew what the hell was going on. Steve’s own mom, for crying out loud, his own parent and his own nearly-wife, both MIA by choice. At this time of all times.
“So tell me,” he said, pushing that particular bitterness aside. “How come you decided to get so sick? I signed up to partner a man of steel with superhuman recuperative abilities. And anyway, what’s wrong with my liver? Can you not just accept it as a gift given in love? Is that really so hard for you?”
For a long while he counted the blips, matched his own breathing rhythm with the ventilator. He held a chilly hand, thumb tracing the line of tendon on the inside of Steve’s wrist.
“And now you know what I think, you can get better, all right?” he said in the end, defeated. The ventilator shushed back at him.
There was movement outside the glass that he caught in his peripheral vision. The nurses were under higher orders, already about to perform a tactical extraction.
And nothing, of course, had changed.
“Jeez, Steven, you’re killing me here. I told you before I wasn’t landing that thing just for you to die on me. I thought we were agreed on that.”
The door clicked open and soft hospital shoes padded in behind him.
Danny closed his whole hand around Steve’s and squeezed shut his eyes for a second. As if he could block it all out, everything except the feel of skin against skin.
“All right,” he said, hating the way the hand slid unresisting out of his own as his chair was moved. “OK. So I’ll give you a second chance. You just stop doing this and come on back to me. Right? Good.”
If he twisted his neck, which he didn’t really like doing because it hurt both his ribs and his wound, he could see Grover waiting with a woman who looked as if she was in charge of rules. Her stance was officious, his was solid Papa Bear.
“Let’s get you back to bed,” his nurse said. “Before we get in more trouble.”
Danny was actually glad of that. He estimated before another ten minutes passed he was likely to throw up. Puking in his lap in an elevator held limited appeal. Luckily he made it back to his bed and an emesis dish, where he could retch in private, holding his wound with one hand, his ribs with the other, while someone held him steady and rubbed his back. The nurse maybe. Or even Papa Bear, Danny wasn’t sure.
Lying back giddy with pain and all puked-out, he frowned up at Lou.
“Don’t you have a job or a home to go to?”
Grover was brusque, worried for him. “Tag team Five-O. Not going anywhere.”
“Uh-huh. And law and order on O’ahu? You know, crime, criminals. Anything?”
“Jerry’s holding the fort.”
“You have got to be-”
Grover huffed a wheezy laugh. “Yeah, I have got to be. Abby’s back from California. You’re stuck with us.”
“Well, OK,” Danny said. “Because I think I may be unwell for a while.”
And he was.
That day – forty-eight hours and counting after surgery – drifted by in a haze of nausea. Too bad to talk to his mom on the phone or even to have the kids come in.
“Well for God’s sake,” Chin said to him late into the evening. His tone didn’t match his words and his hair, uncharacteristically, was standing on end. “You don’t have to come out in sympathy. Lou says you’ve been barfing all day.”
“Thank you for reminding me, I appreciate it.” Danny’s guts still felt watery but at least the agony of his ribs had begun to dial down. “You seen Steve? How’s he doing?”
He couldn’t seem to make his mouth say much else.
“No change,” Chin said and Danny’s sick stomach took a nosedive.
Everybody knew the longer the ventilator was needed the worse the outcome was likely to be.
Night came on with a new host of disturbing scenes. Steve drowned in the plane more than once. Then Steve drowned beneath the machines. After a while Danny knew he was being checked again and settled. Blood pressure, temperature, bags of fluid, more painkillers drifting down the line. He knew someone sat close and told him he was pretty awesome. Kissed his head but didn't touch his hair. Chased away the nightmares.
Kono was there in the morning, so he figured it had been her. Her face was pinched but the corner of one side of her mouth was turned up as she saw him awake. The room was full of sunlight.
“You missed the breakfast trolley.” She curled her pinky finger around his and pulled on it, affectionate. “How you feeling?”
“Steve,” Danny said. “How’s Steve?”
She rubbed a knuckle under one eye, gave him a tentative smile. “He passed the spontaneous breathing trial?”
That it was a question rather than a statement just showed how bad things must be. Danny struggled with that for a moment. He had a natural inclination to distrust anything that sounded positive. “Of course he did. You present that lunatic with a trial, he’ll pass it.”
“I mean, they took him off the ventilator overnight.”
“Took him off,” Danny said. He tried that on for size, a sudden full-body shudder of relief waking up all his sore places. “Why is your face still worrying me?”
“Fever’s up again, so they’re keeping him in ICU. Chin said…” She sighed, gusty. “They’ve changed the meds.”
“Right, Chin said they’ve changed the meds. And what else did he say?”
“Crap, Danny,” Kono mumbled at him. “You’re way too good at this. Chin said they’ve changed the meds but so far he isn’t responding.”
“I’d better go see him again then.”
“You sure you really want to do that? You were sick as a dog all yesterday.”
“Well at least I’m well enough to be sick as a dog.”
Kono shook her head. “Man you’re going to bust our chops every second about this, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Danny said. “Yes, I am going to do that.”
*
He didn’t get official clearance until late in the afternoon.
The kids had come and gone. Wore him out, truth to say. Charlie had been over-tired and playing up, and Grace was painfully moody, although she had clung on longer than he’d been expecting before they left.
“Get better, Danno, please get better,” she whispered, having been monosyllabic and in phone-withdrawal most of the visit. He probably hadn't deflected as skillfully about Uncle Steve as he thought. “We miss you.”
Parenting from a hospital bed was really not cool.
“Just you wait,” Danny said darkly to Chin and then wished he hadn’t because Chin hadn’t decided yet, and even then wouldn’t be able to imagine parenting at all until Child Services had finished giving him fiery hoops to jump through.
Loaded up as he now was with some cocktail that would keep him calm, soothe his ribs, ward off infection, and hopefully anchor his stomach contents firmly in place, Danny felt dangerously mellow. He progressed up to ICU at a gentle glide.
God but it was good to see all that machinery gone from McGarrett’s face. Or at least, pushed to one side by the crash cart, not menacing him.
Steve wasn’t lying any different. The lines of drugs and electrolytes were still in place, but all he needed for breathing support right now was a nasal cannula. That seemed almost normal. He wouldn’t wake up though. Stubborn, stubborn son-of-a-bitch.
Danny slid a thumb under Steve’s. He propped their elbows on the bed, ready to arm wrestle.
“See here, I’m feeling all kinds of terrible, but you look really lousy. Reckon I can take you.”
The dots of sweat on Steve’s face and upper chest looked icy even though the fever still raged. Tiny muscles twitched under his eyelids and around his mouth. Danny’s mellow began to fade. He wanted to scoop him up and take him home. If he didn’t do that, right now, he feared they’d just hook up the machines again, and if that happened… Steve wasn’t coming back. Grief bloomed in his chest. He dropped his heavy head down so his forehead rested on Steve’s knuckles.
“Come on, babe,” he said. “Enough now.”
*
In the new spirit of not hiding anything from him, Grover told Danny that ATC were on the warpath. There’d been rumors of a complaint against Five-0 for reckless endangerment – principally Danny, but also Lou for not overruling him on the beach landing.
It was just after visiting hours, five days on from the op. Danny had eaten a carefully-prepared dinner that Jerry had both made and brought in for him. His new, open room with its still-empty second bed was a mess. Grace had left a pile of homework behind and there was a sticky patch on the floor where Charlie had upended his juice cup.
This calm, twilight time was when they gathered to drink coffee and parcel up the night’s vigils. Danny was past needing a chair-sitter for himself, but he knew one member of the herd stayed around, just in case.
“Oh, please,” he said in answer to the news. “Do they really not have better things to do, these people. Why bring you into it anyhow? You weren’t in charge.”
“How’d you figure that?” Grover hiked a brow.
“I was the one flying the fucking plane!”
“Well no need to get pissy. I think you’ll find I have seniority.”
“Cut it out, guys.” Chin was weary, especially since their collective records made rank-pulling very shaky ground indeed. “Pretty sure the Governor’ll intervene anyhow. ATC are just doing what they have to do.”
“They did a good job that day,” Kono said. “Must just be some asshole wants to make a name for himself.” She saw Chin open his mouth. “Or herself.”
“Was one single person hurt on that beach?” Danny demanded, worrying the bone. He knew a flying propeller blade had almost decapitated Grover, but still. “Was anyone other than those who ended up with half a liver, either their own or someone else’s, inconvenienced at all?”
“It’ll all be OK. Like Chin says, the Governor’s got our backs on this one. I just figured you might like something to get crabby about.”
“Huh.”
“I think it might just be me,” Kono said after a beat, “but is this coffee actually starting to taste OK?”
They looked into their cups, thoughtful.
“Tell me something else.” Danny shifted to get comfortable. “Tell me that scumbag Dae Won’s whole outfit has been closed down.”
“Well funny you should say that,” Grover began, and then stopped.
There was the sound and shadow of someone approaching, and a new wave of tension blew through the room. After a moment Dr. Cornett himself appeared around the corner. His presence was new and surprising. He’d been on leave the previous day, and even though he never seemed to give them positive news, Danny had missed him.
Kono reached behind herself to put her coffee down.
“What’s going on?” Danny demanded at once.
“I’m glad you’re all here.”
One thing Danny hadn’t missed was the sharp fear that immediately lanced through his center as soon as he wondered what the hell that meant.
“I thought you should know right away,” Cornett said, arms folded. “The fever’s down a few points. At last.” He nodded, very professional. “And Commander McGarrett is giving us every sign that he may be waking up.”
His words took a few seconds to make sense.
Then, “Oh, thank Jesus, thank God,” Grover said, which wasn't really like him. He almost seemed to sway where he stood. Chin and Kono just stared, caught fast in the moment.
Danny, mouth pursed, scanned the doctor’s face for hidden downsides. To him Cornett looked as grave as ever.
“Doc?”
“It may not be immediate, but maybe within the next few hours.”
“And it’s a good sign, right?” Danny still couldn’t feel the joy. “Does it mean he’s out of the woods?”
“Oh, long way to go, long way. But heading in the right direction.” Cornett let his gaze travel around the room. “We’re very happy for someone to be with him when he comes round – in fact, it could be vital to have a familiar face and voice to lock on to. But it’s equally important not to overburden him.” His face relaxed a little. “You’ll have to draw lots.”
Grover choked out a strangled laugh.
“I’ll go find Danny a chair,” Chin said, pushing up from his lean.
“Yeah.” Kono allowed herself a small grin at Grover. “He is second in command.”
“Well damn,” Grover said, a shaky smile breaking out on his face. “In that case I’d better jump to, help the man out of bed.”
“Can’t I walk this time?” Danny demanded. “I mean, I can get to the john on my own.”
Cornett almost laughed at him. Almost.
“You know the rules, Detective Williams.”
Yeah. He knew the rules, but if Steve was on his way, this time he wouldn’t even bother kicking back.
*
His trips to the ICU were not, it appeared, finishing anytime soon.
“Listen,” Danny said, ten hours and a brief doze later. There was consciousness and even communication - of sorts - going on in the ICU room. It had been something of a rollercoaster ride getting even this far, and he felt light-headed with too much emotion. “I may have cried on you earlier, but you didn’t notice.”
Although Steve still didn't look much like Steve, there was the hint of a smirk. Slow-motion and feeble, but an attempted smirk at the very least.
It was the fifth time he had been awake.
The first two times had been nothing more than a drowsy series of blinks, revealing a blown and spaced-out stare. The third time he’d managed to latch on for longer but it had been a losing battle, however hard Danny had coaxed. The fourth time, still feverish and with everyone hovering, he’d said Danny’s name as if calling for help from a long way down. After that he'd come out with a string of delirious incoherence in which there was so much nonsense, and so much horror, that it scared the crap out of all of them.
This time there were actual words.
McGarrett was in his right mind. Not that, as Danny didn’t hesitate to point out, such a state didn’t really exist.
But, but, but. There were all these buts. Infection and fever were still locked on to him like twin snipers that wouldn't be taken out, whatever the cavalry did. Getting better was manifestly not like it was on the TV. The clinical staff were often tight-lipped, monitoring intensively around the clock. They said what they needed for their most troublesome patient was natural sleep. An outrageous amount.
It wouldn’t come easy.
Eyes, off-color, over-bright and hurting way too much for Danny’s liking, followed his every move to the cup of ice-chips.
Danny sat back when Steve was through not being able to swallow much and dribbling the rest down his chin.
“So, guess you’re not done then, after all,” he said, blotting the excess away with an edge of sheet.
“Talking - about?” A disjointed run of two words was more or less the limit. There was a growly hint of impatience in there, though. It brought a familiarity that was balm to Danny’s soul.
“In the plane, McGarrett. You told me you were done.” Danny knew it maybe wasn’t the time to scold, and he hated the way Steve was slurring, struggling against every infirmity, but he couldn’t help himself. It mattered. Every little thing mattered.
A spirit of inquiry, characteristic and precious, kinked Steve’s brows.
“Did?”
“You did. ‘I’m done, Danny’. That’s what you said, your precise words. You.”
He was light about something which had nearly finished him. That particular phrase, coming from that particular man, had seemed such a statement of experience and self-knowledge it had nearly paralyzed him. It had been more terrifying than piloting a tin can towards a crash landing and certain death.
A short, fretful pause. “Was - bleeding.”
“Yeah. All over the floor, bozo. The beach, the bus. All over… all over everything.”
“Was - shot.” Steve tried for indignant, and failed. Failed so badly Danny’s stomach hurt.
“Yes you were, and the bastard who did it’s in custody. You would have killed him, don't think I don't know that. I thought about you bleeding your guts out up there and, believe me, buddy, I wanted to put a bullet in his head so bad - so bad it would shock you. But, I was calm. Very calm.”
“Good work.” Those two words were smoother, replete with meaning, covering all the bases Danny could think of. One side of Steve’s mouth twitched.
“Yup, good work. Good for me. But you. You said you were done.” Terror rattled Danny again all of a sudden, and a useless anger he had to express anyway. “You don’t get to say that, all right? Not to me.”
“Ugh,” Steve said, face tightening against some unseen stress, some relentless mental adversary Danny wouldn’t ever want to meet. “Was - done.”
Oh, so he was going to be insistent on this point. That figured.
“Steven…”
“You.” Steve’s lashes tremored, brow bunching more.
Danny hesitated. “Me what?”
“You - weren’t done.”
That was three whole words. In a row.
Steve’s throat worked, sluggish. It was hard to watch him battle, made Danny ache. Steve's eyelids drooped and flickered. He was both fighting against and grasping for the sleep Danny wanted for him so badly. The sleep that would bring him back to them, whole and functioning and kicking their butts. Their Commander.
His Steve.
Danny swallowed. There'd been an ugly tightness around his heart since Steve had been hit that he didn’t know what to do with. All he could think of now was to smooth back spiky fronds of dark hair, too short to be smoothed. Then he gentled the back of his hand down the heated stubble of one fine cheek. Once, twice, a third time, each touch more tender than the last. It soothed the tightness, seemed to make Steve’s face relax – finally – into something Danny recognized.
“Bet your ass I wasn’t done, you son-of-a-bitch,” he said, stupid with devotion. “And never will be.”
-ends-