ratherastory (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ratherastory) wrote2011-03-18 12:20 pm
ratherastory) wrote2011-03-18 12:20 pm
Entry tags:
Collision Course 2/2
Part 1
The going gets even more laborious and painful after that, and with every step Steve is increasingly plagued by doubt. The further they get from the crash site, the more they decrease their chances of getting found by search and rescue, and the more likely it is he'll have to figure out a way to get Danny out all by himself. Except that the more they move, the more likely it is Danny's going to bleed out, go into shock and die, and that's just not on the table, not as far as Steve is concerned. He keeps them going at as steady a pace as he can manage and for the first time in their partnership he does most of the talking, keeping up a steady stream of encouraging platitudes as they go, coaxing his partner over the worst of the bumps and protrusions, trying not to worry when Danny can't find the breath even to swear or complain.
“Never knew you were such a trooper, Danno,” he says with a grin he doesn't feel as they pick their way down a gentle slope, Danny trying without much success to keep his injured leg from dragging and catching on the ground. “Took a team into the rainforest once, and one of our guys ―and this is all classified so you're not allowed to repeat this, got it? I can't even tell you where it was― he steps into some random hole in the ground. I don't even know what made it, if it was just natural or if some animal made a burrow or something, but he went in right up to his knee, and the next thing we all knew his leg was fractured in two places, and he's on the ground, screaming.”
“'s this... meant to make me... feel better?”
“Absolutely. It's to raise morale. Anyway, Parker ―that's his name― is screaming blue murder and rolling on the ground, and we're in the middle of enemy territory, so one of the other guys shoves his belt into Parker's mouth to keep him quiet. The mission was a bust, obviously. We had to carry him out of there on a travois. I'm just saying, he bitched and moaned a hell of a lot more than you the entire time, and he was trained.”
Danny lets out a dry chuckle, then grunts as his foot grazes something Steve can't even see under the thick ground cover. “Least I don't have to pull myself out on my own, like those guys in the mountains.”
Steve coaxes him over a rough patch of ground. “The guys who ate the other guys? Didn't think you were into cannibalism.”
He gets a snort. “Not the soccer team. Mountain climbers. They fall, one guy cuts the rope, and the other one falls and...” he stops to catch his breath, “he breaks his leg. Compound fracture. Friend thinks he's dead... he's in a crevasse... so he crawls out on his own, compound fracture and everything. Saw it in theatres. Terrifying.”
“The other guy cut the rope? What kind of asshole does that?”
“Thought he was dead, remember?”
Steve shakes his head. “I wouldn't cut the rope. You don't do that kind of thing. It's irresponsible.”
“Missing the point, McGarrett...” Danny's even more breathless. “The guy crawled out on his own. Hardcore. ”
“Okay, got it. Hardcore. Save your breath, would you?”
Danny huffs a laugh. “Thought... we were bonding.”
“We are bonding. You just do it quietly, okay?”
“'kay.”
The next thing he knows Danny has been wrenched free of his grip, courtesy of a misstep in the thick foliage, and lands hard on the ground, throwing Steve so far off-balance that he falls forward and rolls several feet before he's able to stop himself and scramble back up the slope, heart hammering painfully against his ribs.
“Danny! Danny, you okay?”
Danny's curled over on himself, his good leg drawn up, one hand reaching futilely down toward his injured leg. He's breathing fast, bordering on hyperventilation, each breath a sob of pain, eyes squeezed tightly shut. The stick he’s been using as a crutch is lying a few feet away splintered at the two-thirds mark, completely useless.
“Fuck, Danny, I'm so sorry,” he brushes a hand against Danny's forehead. “Come on, talk to me,” he grabs the hand that's clawing at the injured leg, and Danny squeezes back so hard that for a minute he thinks he might break his fingers. “Okay. Okay, take it easy, Danno. Just breathe through it, that's it. Deep breaths, okay? Deep as you can manage.”
For a second it looks like it’s working, then Danny pushes himself up onto an elbow and throws up what little water he’s been able to swallow all day, the result of pain and shock more than anything, Steve thinks a little helplessly as he waits for the dry-heaves to stop. Finally Danny catches his breath with a muted whimper, and Steve catches hold of his arm.
“Okay now?”
Danny just shakes his head, so Steve waits, one hand placed lightly between Danny’s shoulder blades, rubbing in circles with his thumb. After a moment he realizes Danny’s talking, so low he can barely hear him.
“What? What is it? Talk to me, Danny,” he ducks his head, straining to hear, and his heart drops.
“I don’t think I can do this. I can’t…”
Shit, Steve thinks. “Yes you can, Danno!” he says sharply. “You hear me? There is no way you’re giving up on me now. Come on, up you come. Get up. Up!”
He doesn’t wait for his partner to catch his breath this time, just yanks him to his feet and wraps both his arms around Danny’s torso, propping him up as his good knee buckles from the pain. Danny’s breath catches in his throat in another pained sob, but he clutches at Steve’s arms, trying to hold himself up.
“There you go. That guy in the crevasse has nothing on you.”
“Only... 'cause you didn't cut the rope.”
“Exactly. Now come on. We’ll get movie rights for this when we get back, make a mint, but you have to hang on for me, okay? No stopping, no passing out, and definitely no giving up, you understand me? You got it, Danny?”
Danny swallows hard. “Got it. Fucking bossy son of a bitch…” he rasps, but it’s the best sound Steve has heard in hours. “Gotta… work on your control issues… McGarrett.”
“I promise you can give me the cards of as many therapists as you want when we get back.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely,” Steve manoeuvres him gently around until his arm is back over his shoulders, splinted leg sheltered between them. “Tell you what, I’ll even start reading the suspects their rights before I hang them off buildings.”
“Now I know you’re lying,” Danny manages a chuckle, no longer quite so out of breath. “You’d rather stick a fork in your eye than follow due process… Christ!” His fingers dig into Steve’s arm as pain jolts through him. “Are we there yet?” he jokes weakly.
“Yeah, almost. Quit bitching, or I’m turning the car around.”
“Only if you promise me ice cream later.”
“You got it.”
“Stop being nice to me, you’re only confirming that I’m on death’s door,” Danny grunts.
“Fine. No ice cream.”
“That’s more like it.”
They don’t make very good time, not that Steve was expecting to. By the time the sun is beginning to dip out of sight beyond the trees, he figures they might just be far enough away from the crash site that no more hostile forces will come looking for them, especially not after dark. The night, however, is going to bring its own challenges. Danny’s barely clinging to consciousness, and Steve himself is definitely beginning to tire after holding up most of his partner’s weight all day as well as forging a trail through the Puna rainforest. If he doesn’t stop soon he’s going to exhaust himself as well, and then they’ll both be utterly fucked.
After about half an hour he finally gets them to another clearing, one he figures will serve well enough for now.
“Okay, Danny, we’re stopping,” he says, and gets a murmured hum of what might be agreement or gratitude or just sheer exhaustion. “Ready? Down you go, easy…”
He shifts Danny’s weight carefully, lowers him to the ground with arms that are trembling from the added strain. Danny helps as best he can, but his best isn’t much at this point, and his eyes close the moment he’s on the ground, propped against a fallen log. Steve shakes him by his good knee.
“No sleeping yet, Danno. I want to check you over again, make sure you’re still mostly in one piece. You cold?” It’s a stupid question, because Danny’s shivering now that he’s no longer moving and pressed up against Steve, who always runs a little hot anyway. He rummages in the first aid kit, rips open one of the emergency thermal blanket packets, and unfolds it, the foil crinkling loudly in the still air.
Danny forces his eyes open as Steve tucks the blanket around him. “Mistake me for a baked potato?”
“No jokes about food when I’m hungry,” he orders, ripping open another packet and carefully sliding it under Danny’s back, and cursing himself for not having done that first. “How’s your head?”
“How’d you think?”
He ignores the tone. Danny’s entitled to be a little testy by now. “Still seeing double?”
“Just fuzzy,” Danny drapes an arm over his eyes in an attempt to block out the dwindling light. “Leg’s fucking killing me.”
“Yeah, I bet,” Steve runs his hands the length of the splint, checking to make sure it hasn’t come loose or shifted too much after the day’s exertion, but his first-aid skills appear to have been up to the task. “There’s only aspirin in the first aid kit, and I’m not giving you a blood thinner if I can help it.”
Danny grunts. “Kind of beyond aspirin, anyway. ‘s it me, or is it cold?”
“It’s you, Danno.”
“Shit. Fucking stupid way to die. Hate helicopters.”
“You’re not dying!” Steve snaps.
“Right,” Danny says tiredly. “Forgot. Sorry.”
Steve reaches out, then, nudges Danny’s arm aside, and lays a hand against his forehead. “I mean it, Danno. I’m not going to let you die out here. You trust me, right?”
Danny nods tightly, but he meets Steve’s gaze firmly, expression oddly tender. “Yeah, I do.”
“Okay, good,” Steve swallows a sudden lump in his throat. “So trust me on this. No one is dying today.”
“Apart from those guys from before.”
“Yeah, well, they had it coming,” Steve says grimly, and to his surprise Danny laughs at that.
“You’re a lunatic,” he wheezes. “Completely out of your mind. I’m trapped in the rainforest with a dislocated knee, a concussion and probably internal bleeding with a raving madman who thinks that dumping people in shark cages is all part and parcel of due process. How is this even my life?”
Steve rolls his eyes, a little dizzy trying to keep up with the ups and downs of his partner’s emotions. Danny’s mercurial at the best of times, but throw in a little injury, blood loss and shock, and he’s a goddamned roller coaster. “I was hoping having a concussion would make you more agreeable, but apparently I was mistaken.”
“He wants me to be agreeable,” Danny addresses the heavens, flicking one hand disdainfully. “Swear to God… Any chance of water?” he asks hopefully.
Steve purses his lips. “I can give you a sip, but not more. We're already pushing this.”
“So unfair,” Danny complains. He does sit up a bit, though, and swallows a mouthful of water from the canteen Steve holds for him. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. If we’re still stranded tomorrow we'll revisit the water situation.” He doesn't mention that if they're still stranded tomorrow, food will be the least of their worries.
“Look forward to it.”
The ground’s too wet for a fire, even if it didn’t mean leaving Danny alone and unprotected while he went in search of kindling. Steve chokes down a couple of mouthfuls of jerky, forcing himself to eat because he knows he has to, but he finds he doesn't have much of an appetite after the day they've had. He should be ravenous, but he feels like his stomach has twisted itself into a giant knot from anxiety and exhaustion.
The adrenaline has long since worn off, he figures, watching Danny’s chest rise and fall with increasing rapidity. He checks his partner again, noting with alarm that there's a bluish tint to his lips now. He can feel that Danny’s hands have turned ice cold, that his good leg isn’t in much better shape. Shock and blood loss and all the exertion finally taking its toll. He’s surprised it’s taken this long –trust Danny to be an ornery son of a bitch even when it comes to injury.
Night falls faster than he was expecting, somehow, the shadows lengthening rapidly and plunging the forest into almost pitch darkness. He can barely make out Danny’s silhouette on the ground, though he can still hear him breathing, which is something of a reassurance. All around them, the rainforest comes to life with the sounds of the night animals stirring and beginning their rounds. It all seems so much louder at night, with no daylight to distract him from the noise –deafening, almost. Danny shifts uncomfortably on the ground next to him.
“What the fuck is that? Crickets on steroids?” He sounds both annoyed and curious, which is a combination that only Danny Williams could ever manage, Steve is sure of it.
He lets out a surprised bark of laughter. “No, that’s the coqi frogs. I never realized how loud they are. No wonder people are pissed off.”
“Do I even want to know?”
“They’re a pest. Got brought over from Puerto Rico, and since they’ve got no natural predators they’re spreading all over the place.”
“Like those toads in Australia.”
“Exactly. People are pissed because the noise drives down property values.”
“You know, you’re not exactly making a convincing case to me for this entire state not being insane. Property values?”
“Apparently sometimes they’re loud enough to drown out the TV set in people’s homes. I don’t know, there aren’t any near where I live.” Steve shrugs, even though Danny can’t see him in the dark. “They aren’t keeping you up, are they?” he teases.
“No…” Danny shifts again, and something in his tone makes Steve’s stomach clench.
“You okay?”
“Cold.”
There aren’t anymore thermal blankets, but it’s obviously not enough. He slides over next to his partner. “Okay. Don’t take this the wrong way,” he jokes nervously, lifting the edge of the blanket and sliding under it. “Just going to try to get you warmed up a bit.”
Danny chuffs a laugh. “Love you too, McGarrett,” he murmurs.
Steve freezes, completely at a loss as to how to take the statement. Come on, he tells himself, just pull it together, and you can worry about that later. He puts his arm carefully over Danny’s chest, careful not to apply pressure, presses in along his side, and is relieved and kind of pleased when Danny settles against him with a quiet sigh.
“You’re warm,” Danny murmurs.
“You’re just cold.”
“There’s a joke in there about red-blooded American males, but I can’t find it,” Danny shifts again, not that Steve can blame him –he’s long since passed the age where sleeping on the ground is comfortable even under the best of circumstances. “I’m sorry about this,” he murmurs unexpectedly.
Steve blinks. “What the hell are you sorry for?”
“If it weren’t for me, you’d probably be safe back home by now. I know how much I slowed you down and, uh…”
“Danny, shut up.” He can feel his partner’s surprise, and presses his advantage before he can recover and start talking again. “I’m not in the habit of leaving people behind. Not my family, not my team, not anyone. And definitely not you, even if you don’t like pineapple. And it’s frankly insulting that you’d suggest I would.”
“Wasn’t suggesting that,” Danny’s voice is failing, and Steve tightens his hold on him instinctively. “I was just trying to say thank you, you jackass.”
“Funny way of saying it.”
“You’re not leaving.”
It’s not a question, but he treats it like one anyway. “No, I’m not leaving you. Promise.”
Danny doesn’t answer, but Steve can tell he’s still awake and heard him just fine. Eventually, Danny’s breathing evens out a little, and he lapses into a fitful doze. It’s all Steve can do to keep himself awake, even with the chorus of coqi frogs chirping loudly all around them. More than once he dozes off only to jerk awake again, heart jack-rabbitting in his chest, eyes tracking wildly for some unseen danger,
The third time he wakens it’s morning, though early enough that not all of the mist has lifted from the ground. He feels groggier than he has any right to, and his entire body aches and throbs now that it's had time to stiffen up overnight. Slowly he becomes aware of Danny moving restlessly next to him, though he doesn’t rouse when Steve whispers his name nor give any indication that he can hear him at all. He’s breathing raggedly, struggling weakly against something Steve can’t see, and when Steve leans over him he can just make out the word “Grace” on his partner’s lips.
“Easy, Danno,” he says softly, raising a hand to smooth it over Danny’s forehead. “You’re okay. Grace is fine, nothing to worry about.”
The words have their intended effect, because Danny instantly relaxes under his touch, eyes opening to look up at him. “You’ll watch out for her, right?” he grabs Steve’s wrist, fingers pressing against the pulse point there. “You'll tell her―”
“What did I tell you about getting out of this?” Steve interrupts, feeling his heart skip a beat at the sound of Danny's words. They sound too final to be comforting. “You tell her yourself, Danno.”
“Let’s call it… hedging my bets. Promise me?”
“If I promise, you have to promise to hang on until I get us home.”
“Fair ‘nough.”
Danny’s eyes close again, and this time he doesn’t respond at all to Steve’s touch or any other attempt to wake him. His lips have turned a worrying shade of blue, his fingers ice-cold in Steve's hand, his breathing growing increasingly shallow. There’s no way to move him now, Steve thinks, trying to clamp down on the panic rising in his chest. For the first time he’s really beginning to understand why they take people off cases where they have personal connections. He’s trained to deal with this sort of thing, has dealt with it countless times before, but it’s Danny and every time he let himself think about the very real consequences of what he’s doing it feels like part of his mind –the rational, useful part of his mind that would let him treat Danny’s injuries and make the right sort of decision to keep them both safe– just shuts down entirely, replaced with red blinking lights and a cartoon siren that just won’t shut up.
“Hang in there, Danno,” he manages, though the words choke him a little. “Search and rescue are going to be heading up again soon, and we’re not so far off-course that this won’t be part of the search grid. I just need you to hang in there a little longer. You promised.”
There’s still nothing with which to build a fire, but he liberates one of the thermal blankets and spreads it in the clearing, figuring it’s reflective enough to catch the sunlight, if the vog isn’t too thick. It’s impossible to tell from the ground, but Steve has always considered himself an optimist, and so he sets about making them as visible as possible from the air, moving stiffly as his muscles seize up and cramp from all the abuse they've sustained over the past day. When he’s checked and double-checked everything he lets himself collapse next to Danny, the moisture from the ground seeping through his already-damp khakis, and checks Danny’s pulse for what feels like the hundredth time.
“You’re still hanging in there, right?” he asks softly, even though Danny’s long past hearing him. “Don't you fucking dare die on me, Danno. Not now.”
He stares up at the sky, willing a helicopter to appear overhead. Hell, he’ll settle for a hang-glider at this point, if it means any sign of human life. There’s nothing, though, not even static from the useless radio he liberated from their attackers yesterday. He doesn't know how long he spends like that, only that after a while it feels like all his muscles are on fire from being in the same position and he's a little dizzy, probably from having eaten next to nothing since yesterday morning. He thinks to check his watch for the first time since before they took off, only to realize that it's broken. The sun tells him it's fast going on midday and it worries him a little in a distant, niggling fashion that he hasn't really felt the time go by.
It’s then that he hears it. At first he tells himself he’s imagining the distant drone, but it comes steadily closer, and he all but whoops for joy, scrambling to his feet in spite of his aching muscles and spinning head. When he’s positive the helicopter is within visual range he pulls out the flare gun, aims it above his head and fires, watching it arc up into the sky, leaving a crimson trail of smoke behind it as it falls. Then he drops to one knee and gives Danny's shoulder a triumphant squeeze.
“Told you we’d be okay, Danny. You just have to hold on a few more minutes, okay? Just a few minutes, and we’re home free. Just hold on.”
~*~
“Hey, boss, you awake?”
Kono’s voice filters through the fog in his head. He opens his eyes, tasting something similar to cotton wool in his mouth. His head feels strangely heavy, like he’s gotten out of the habit of lifting it. The rest of him feels like he's floating a few inches over his bed. Slowly his rookie’s smiling face comes into focus.
“Hey, you’re back with us!” she exclaims, looking pleased, which is nice, he thinks dazedly. He doesn’t remember the last time someone looked that happy to see him.
There’s the distinctive smell of antiseptic in the air that tells him he’s in a hospital, and for a moment he can’t remember how he got here, or even what happened that would make a hospital necessary. He’s not in any pain that he can tell… and that’s when it all comes back in a rush.
“Danny…”
He struggles to sit up, but everything’s a little swimmy and weird, and Kono shoves him unceremoniously back onto the hospital bed. “Stay put, boss. Don’t make the nice doctors drug you into submission again, okay? You’re still dehydrated and all that, so let the IV do its thing, and I promise I’ll answer every question you’ve got.”
He lets his head fall back against the thin hospital-issue pillow. He only has the vaguest recollection of the chopper ride, arriving at the hospital, but he does remember not wanting to let Danny out of his sight until he was sure he was okay. After that, nothing. That’s probably when they sedated him, he thinks ruefully. So much for keeping a cool head in a crisis.
“Where’s Danny?”
“He’s in surgery, where he’s been for the last…” Kono checks her watch, “five hours or so. We don’t know anything yet,” she lays a hand on his arm, “but I promise you’ll be the first person we'll tell when there’s news. You want some water? You sound pretty hoarse. There’s even a straw.” She rolls up the bed so he can sit up, hands him a plastic cup of water.
“How bad is it?” It does feel better to talk once he’s had a drink of water.
She makes a noncommittal gesture that’s not quite a shrug. “He’s bleeding internally, so they’re doing exploratory surgery to fix that. After that, nobody knows. You know how it goes with these things. Don’t worry,” she adds, “Danny’s a fighter. He’ll pull through just fine, you’ll see.”
He nods. “Fill me in on the rest?”
“I was kind of hoping for the opposite. Hang on, let me get Chin, he’s fielding the paperwork.”
Chin Ho looks equally pleased to see him, and it occurs to Steve, not for the first time, that he got really lucky in his team. They might be the most eccentric team ever put together in the history of all task forces, but he’s led trained men in the field sometimes for years without any of them forming the easy attachment and deep loyalties this crew has demonstrated over the past few months. Chin gives him an odd look, and Steve realizes that he must be telegraphing his thoughts more than usual in his expressions. Stupid drugs.
“Good to see you awake,” Chin awards him a smile which tells Steve that he was probably acting more than a little crazy before the sedatives were administered. He winces.
“Was I that bad?”
“Extenuating circumstances. I don’t think anyone can be blamed for losing it a little after something like that.”
He lets his head drop into the palm of his hand. “Okay, apart from the stuff I’m never going to live down, what can you tell me?”
“You sure you want to do this now?” Kono sounds like she’s worried and trying not to show it. “This can all wait a day, at least until you’re back on your feet.”
He shakes his head. “We’ll do a formal debrief later, but for now…”
“Okay,” Kono pulls out her notebook. “It’s pretty straightforward on our end. When you didn’t come back on schedule, we sent out search and rescue in the general vicinity of your last known coordinates. Control told us hours later that there was an attempt at communication earlier, which they think might have been your mayday, but reception was fucked and nobody could make heads or tails of it or even tell where it came from. Might have been interference, or deliberate signal jamming, there’s no way to be sure at this point. Search and rescue located your crash site, but there wasn’t any sign of you there. And then, of course, there were the bodies about five hundred yards out...” she pauses and looks at him meaningfully.
He nods.“Yeah, I’ll explain that in a bit.”
“So by then visibility was too poor to keep going. We regrouped this morning, and that’s when you were found. Your turn,” she says pointedly.
It’s deceptively easy to sum up everything that’s happened in the last day, and yet the few sentences it takes to describe the attack, the crash, the men who came after them in the forest, all seems pathetically inadequate to convey all of it. He should be used to this by now, he thinks a little bitterly, trying to describe combat to non-combatants without freaking them out. But Chin and Kono aren’t exactly civilians, either. Luckily, they both seem to understand without his having to draw them a picture or walk them through it more than he already has. He finishes his cup of water, then reaches to unhook his IV, fully intending to get the hell out of this bed and go find the waiting room outside Danny’s operating room, only to find himself being rather forcefully grabbed and pushed back onto his bed.
“You’re staying put,” Chin says firmly. “Doctor’s orders.”
“That ridiculous,” he sputters. “I’m fine. I came out of that with bruises and a couple of scratches. I’m fine,” he insists, seeing their expressions.
“Except for how you survived a helicopter crash,” Kono points out, “and they’re keeping you under observation for twenty-four hours. And they’ve made it perfectly clear that if you don’t cooperate with us, they’re going to take more drastic measures,” she adds grimly.
Steve snorts. “They can’t do that if I don’t consent.”
“Fine. Then I will take more drastic measures. Stay. Put.”
Chin grins at him. “If it were me, I wouldn’t argue.”
Steve’s head starts to ache. He’s too damned tired for this, and all he wants is to be there when they get Danny out of surgery. “I just want to see how Danny is…” he mutters mutinously, and much to his embarrassment, Kono pats his knee.
“I told you, we won’t know anything until he’s out of surgery, and we don’t know how long that’s going to take. So how about you trust us to tell you when it’s time, okay? Come on,” her tone turns ever so slightly coaxing. “You’re exhausted, and you can’t do Danny any good if you run yourself into the ground. He’ll bounce back, but he’ll need you to be a hundred percent, right?”
“Just take a nap, brah,” Chin says reasonably. “We'll wake you the minute Danny's out of surgery.”
He's too tired to argue, his eyes already closing, and he can't tell if it's because he's truly exhausted or if the sedatives are still having an effect. The last thing he's aware of is Kono's hand on his arm, warm and reassuring.
The next time he opens his eyes, Chin is shaking him gently by the shoulder. “Wake up, brah. Danny's out of surgery, but they're not letting anyone see him yet. Figured you'd want to be awake for what the doctor has to say, especially since you're the guy whose name is on the emergency paperwork.”
He nods, scrubs the remnants of sleep from his eyes ―and notes that he's desperately in need of a shave as he rubs a hand over his face― and only grudgingly submits to the nurse's insistence that he remain in the wheelchair provided by the hospital. “For liability purposes, I assure you. You don't want us to get sued, do you?”
The news isn't terrible, but it's not exactly encouraging, either, not that Steve was expecting a miracle, even if he'd allowed himself to hope... The doctor's face is serious, all business as he delivers his news.
“We were able to locate and stop the bleeding, which was the most immediate threat, but he's got a hard road ahead of him. The surgery was hard on him –his heart stopped twice while we were operating on him, though we were able to bring him back without too much difficulty. We'll be monitoring him closely for the next forty-eight hours, and if he pulls through, then I can safely say the outlook will be a lot better for him. He's developed an infection, which isn't unusual but is cause for concern, so we’ll be keeping a close eye on him for that too.”
Steve nods, glad to note Kono is taking notes, because he’s not sure he’s going to remember any of this tomorrow. All he can think right now is that Danny’s heart stopped, and he wasn’t even awake for it. “Can I see him?”
“He’s in intensive care,” the doctor equivocates, then relents under the effect of three simultaneous glares. “One person at a time. We’ve had to put him on a ventilator to assist with his breathing, and he won’t be waking up anytime soon, so you need to be prepared and be patient.”
Chin works some sort of administrative magic –and not for the first time Steve congratulates himself on the second-best choice he made while making up his team– and Steve finds himself with complete access to Danny, if he wants it, and he does. Someone brings in a reclining chair so he can sit by Danny’s bed and still get some sleep, and that’s where he spends the next two days, listening to the hypnotic click-whoosh of the ventilator, and watching Danny like a hawk for any sign that he might be coming out of it. There’s work piling up at the office, dozens of calls unanswered and ignored on his cell phone, which is turned off and left somewhere to rot, for all he cares.
For all that he's just come out of major surgery, Danny looks a lot better than Steve remembers. His face is still pale under the gauze bandage, but it's no longer the sickly shade of washed-out grey as before, and his lips and fingernails have pinked up again. Nurses come and go quietly, checking on his vital signs and changing the bandages from the surgery on his leg and abdomen. Steve moves out of their way when they're working, but otherwise he sticks as close to Danny's bedside as he can without actually sitting on it. He finds himself watching Danny's hands, unnervingly still and lax at his sides, the fingers curling in slightly toward his palms. It's unsettling to be in the same room with Danny and not hear his voice, bitching loudly about whatever subject has caught his attention, hands in constant motion. Seeing him motionless... it's just unnatural.
Rachel visits once, but she doesn't come again once Steve promises he'll keep her up to speed on Danny's progress so that she can tell Grace. While she's there she stares at Danny with a pinched, haunted look on her face and leaves so abruptly that he can't help but be reminded of a tactical retreat. He watches her go and wonders just how long she's been dreading a moment just like this one, even long after her divorce.
There’s no magical moment in which Danny wakes up and everything gets set to rights again, but forty-eight hours pass, and he’s still hanging on, and so Steve just settles himself in to wait for the long haul. He learns the names of the ICU nurses, lets Chin and Kono bring him coffee and the occasional sandwich, and becomes better-versed in the workings of the human body than he ever really wanted to be. Danny gets weaned off the ventilator excruciatingly slowly, but it’s progress, and at this point Steve will take what he can get. Eventually the doctor allows himself to cautiously suggest an orthopaedic consult for Danny’s knee, once he’s awake and suitably recovered from the internal injuries and surgery, and Steve grins at him. The fact that Danny’s probably going to need multiple surgeries on his leg might be the best news he’s had in his entire life, because it means Danny’s going to live to need them.
Danny’s been in the hospital for five days, and off the ventilator for a little over forty-eight hours when he finally opens his eyes, and in spite of all of Steve’s efforts to make damned well sure that he’s there for it, he’s managed to doze off in the chair by Danny’s bed when it does happen. He comes awake with a start to find bright blue eyes fixed on him, though Danny hasn’t said a word yet. In a flash he’s on his feet, reaching for his partner’s hand and leaning over the bed. He can feel a stupid grin spreading over his face, but can’t bring himself to care.
“Hey, you with me?”
Danny nods carefully, as though he’s a little worried his head might come off his shoulders if he makes too sudden a movement. Five days' worth of beard growth makes him look older than he is, and careworn.
“W’happen’?” His voice breaks, comes out as little more than a hoarse croak.
Steve reaches for the cup of ice that’s been left by the bed, a little melted by now but still good enough, and holds a spoonful to his lips. “You’re in the hospital,” he says, entirely unnecessarily judging by the eyeroll he gets in response. “Do you remember the crash?”
Danny’s eyes close for a few seconds as he concentrates, then they open again, and he nods. “Hate helicopters,” he says with a wan smile and Steve grins at him so hard he thinks his face might actually split in half.
“Search and rescue found us, and not a minute too soon, I might add. You scared the shit out of me, Danno,” he adds quietly. “I thought we might have been too late…”
Danny swallows painfully and accepts another spoonful of ice chips. “You didn’t give up,” he points out. “Couldn’t let you win, could I? Never live it down…”
It’s physically impossible for Steve to grin any wider. “Exactly.”
“You look like hell, Steve.”
“Yeah, well, you're not exactly winning any beauty pageants yourself these days,” Steve rolls his eyes, can't stop grinning anyway.
“I fell out of a helicopter. What's your excuse?” Danny tries to sit up, winces and gives up. “So… how bad is it?”
Steve shrugs, sobering a little. “No reason you won’t bounce back from this, the doctor says, but it’s going to take a while. Maybe surgery on your knee, they’re saying, and lots of rehab. You okay?” he asks, as Danny shifts with another wince. “Need anything for pain? I should call someone…” he reaches for the call button on the bed.
“It’s fine, babe, leave it. In a minute,” Danny flaps a hand at him weakly.
“Okay, if you’re sure…” He hesitates, fumbling for the right words to formulate what’s been running through his mind ever since Danny came out of surgery. “So, I’ve been thinking…”
“I was wondering where the smell of burning rubber was coming from,” Danny murmurs, and Steve laughs in spite of himself.
“Shut up and let me finish. I was thinking that it doesn’t make sense for you to go back to your old apartment. There are a million stairs–”
“A million?”
“Lots of stairs,” Steve amends, fixing his gaze on the bed and fiddling with the edge of the sheet, not quite daring to meet Danny’s eyes. “And it’s kind of small and cramped and it would be hard for you to get around. My place is closer to the hospital anyway, and I have more room than I know what to do with, and it’s not like you don’t already let yourself in on a regular basis, so it wouldn’t change much for you that way. And if, you know, you’re worried about Grace, or something, I have a guest room, and I could talk it over with Rachel, and she could, you know, come by and make sure she’s okay with it too, and–”
“McGarrett,” Danny interrupts his rambling, and never has Steve felt more grateful for an interruption in his entire life.
“Yeah?”
“Are you asking me to move in with you?”
“Um. Yes.”
“Okay, then.”
“So… is that a yes?”
“It’s not a no. Have to think about it. It’s not exactly ideal, you know, as living arrangements go.”
Steve tries to swallow his disappointment. After all, it’s unreasonable of him to assume that Danny will jump at the chance to go live in the same house with him. By Danny’s standards, they barely know each other, even if the past few days have taught Steve that he doesn’t really like the idea of ever being apart from his partner ever again. He can’t expect Danny to feel the same way, he tells himself sharply, then looks up to find Danny grinning at him, and unexpected warmth floods through him.
“You asshole,” he swats Danny lightly on the shoulder. “That’s really mean. I’ve been worried sick, and this is the thanks I get?”
Danny laughs. “Hey, watch it! No hitting the trauma patient! I totally had you going, though, didn’t I?” He settles back on his bed, eyes closing, and Steve can see what little energy he had is fading quickly.
“Yes, you did. Asshole,” he repeats, just in case the message didn’t get through the first time. “So… it’s a yes, then?”
“You really need me to spell this out? Maybe sign a contract in my blood?” Danny murmurs.
“Keep your blood, you’ve lost enough as it is.” Steve reaches out to smooth Danny’s hair away from his forehead, then takes Danny’s hand again, reassuring himself that he’s not actually dreaming any of this. “And, uh, yeah. I kind of need to know you’re on board with this too.”
Danny doesn’t open his eyes, but he squeezes Steve’s fingers, and his next words make Steve’s heart do a weird skipping thing in his chest that he is never going to admit to in public.
“Yeah, babe, I’m on board.”
~END~
The going gets even more laborious and painful after that, and with every step Steve is increasingly plagued by doubt. The further they get from the crash site, the more they decrease their chances of getting found by search and rescue, and the more likely it is he'll have to figure out a way to get Danny out all by himself. Except that the more they move, the more likely it is Danny's going to bleed out, go into shock and die, and that's just not on the table, not as far as Steve is concerned. He keeps them going at as steady a pace as he can manage and for the first time in their partnership he does most of the talking, keeping up a steady stream of encouraging platitudes as they go, coaxing his partner over the worst of the bumps and protrusions, trying not to worry when Danny can't find the breath even to swear or complain.
“Never knew you were such a trooper, Danno,” he says with a grin he doesn't feel as they pick their way down a gentle slope, Danny trying without much success to keep his injured leg from dragging and catching on the ground. “Took a team into the rainforest once, and one of our guys ―and this is all classified so you're not allowed to repeat this, got it? I can't even tell you where it was― he steps into some random hole in the ground. I don't even know what made it, if it was just natural or if some animal made a burrow or something, but he went in right up to his knee, and the next thing we all knew his leg was fractured in two places, and he's on the ground, screaming.”
“'s this... meant to make me... feel better?”
“Absolutely. It's to raise morale. Anyway, Parker ―that's his name― is screaming blue murder and rolling on the ground, and we're in the middle of enemy territory, so one of the other guys shoves his belt into Parker's mouth to keep him quiet. The mission was a bust, obviously. We had to carry him out of there on a travois. I'm just saying, he bitched and moaned a hell of a lot more than you the entire time, and he was trained.”
Danny lets out a dry chuckle, then grunts as his foot grazes something Steve can't even see under the thick ground cover. “Least I don't have to pull myself out on my own, like those guys in the mountains.”
Steve coaxes him over a rough patch of ground. “The guys who ate the other guys? Didn't think you were into cannibalism.”
He gets a snort. “Not the soccer team. Mountain climbers. They fall, one guy cuts the rope, and the other one falls and...” he stops to catch his breath, “he breaks his leg. Compound fracture. Friend thinks he's dead... he's in a crevasse... so he crawls out on his own, compound fracture and everything. Saw it in theatres. Terrifying.”
“The other guy cut the rope? What kind of asshole does that?”
“Thought he was dead, remember?”
Steve shakes his head. “I wouldn't cut the rope. You don't do that kind of thing. It's irresponsible.”
“Missing the point, McGarrett...” Danny's even more breathless. “The guy crawled out on his own. Hardcore. ”
“Okay, got it. Hardcore. Save your breath, would you?”
Danny huffs a laugh. “Thought... we were bonding.”
“We are bonding. You just do it quietly, okay?”
“'kay.”
The next thing he knows Danny has been wrenched free of his grip, courtesy of a misstep in the thick foliage, and lands hard on the ground, throwing Steve so far off-balance that he falls forward and rolls several feet before he's able to stop himself and scramble back up the slope, heart hammering painfully against his ribs.
“Danny! Danny, you okay?”
Danny's curled over on himself, his good leg drawn up, one hand reaching futilely down toward his injured leg. He's breathing fast, bordering on hyperventilation, each breath a sob of pain, eyes squeezed tightly shut. The stick he’s been using as a crutch is lying a few feet away splintered at the two-thirds mark, completely useless.
“Fuck, Danny, I'm so sorry,” he brushes a hand against Danny's forehead. “Come on, talk to me,” he grabs the hand that's clawing at the injured leg, and Danny squeezes back so hard that for a minute he thinks he might break his fingers. “Okay. Okay, take it easy, Danno. Just breathe through it, that's it. Deep breaths, okay? Deep as you can manage.”
For a second it looks like it’s working, then Danny pushes himself up onto an elbow and throws up what little water he’s been able to swallow all day, the result of pain and shock more than anything, Steve thinks a little helplessly as he waits for the dry-heaves to stop. Finally Danny catches his breath with a muted whimper, and Steve catches hold of his arm.
“Okay now?”
Danny just shakes his head, so Steve waits, one hand placed lightly between Danny’s shoulder blades, rubbing in circles with his thumb. After a moment he realizes Danny’s talking, so low he can barely hear him.
“What? What is it? Talk to me, Danny,” he ducks his head, straining to hear, and his heart drops.
“I don’t think I can do this. I can’t…”
Shit, Steve thinks. “Yes you can, Danno!” he says sharply. “You hear me? There is no way you’re giving up on me now. Come on, up you come. Get up. Up!”
He doesn’t wait for his partner to catch his breath this time, just yanks him to his feet and wraps both his arms around Danny’s torso, propping him up as his good knee buckles from the pain. Danny’s breath catches in his throat in another pained sob, but he clutches at Steve’s arms, trying to hold himself up.
“There you go. That guy in the crevasse has nothing on you.”
“Only... 'cause you didn't cut the rope.”
“Exactly. Now come on. We’ll get movie rights for this when we get back, make a mint, but you have to hang on for me, okay? No stopping, no passing out, and definitely no giving up, you understand me? You got it, Danny?”
Danny swallows hard. “Got it. Fucking bossy son of a bitch…” he rasps, but it’s the best sound Steve has heard in hours. “Gotta… work on your control issues… McGarrett.”
“I promise you can give me the cards of as many therapists as you want when we get back.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely,” Steve manoeuvres him gently around until his arm is back over his shoulders, splinted leg sheltered between them. “Tell you what, I’ll even start reading the suspects their rights before I hang them off buildings.”
“Now I know you’re lying,” Danny manages a chuckle, no longer quite so out of breath. “You’d rather stick a fork in your eye than follow due process… Christ!” His fingers dig into Steve’s arm as pain jolts through him. “Are we there yet?” he jokes weakly.
“Yeah, almost. Quit bitching, or I’m turning the car around.”
“Only if you promise me ice cream later.”
“You got it.”
“Stop being nice to me, you’re only confirming that I’m on death’s door,” Danny grunts.
“Fine. No ice cream.”
“That’s more like it.”
They don’t make very good time, not that Steve was expecting to. By the time the sun is beginning to dip out of sight beyond the trees, he figures they might just be far enough away from the crash site that no more hostile forces will come looking for them, especially not after dark. The night, however, is going to bring its own challenges. Danny’s barely clinging to consciousness, and Steve himself is definitely beginning to tire after holding up most of his partner’s weight all day as well as forging a trail through the Puna rainforest. If he doesn’t stop soon he’s going to exhaust himself as well, and then they’ll both be utterly fucked.
After about half an hour he finally gets them to another clearing, one he figures will serve well enough for now.
“Okay, Danny, we’re stopping,” he says, and gets a murmured hum of what might be agreement or gratitude or just sheer exhaustion. “Ready? Down you go, easy…”
He shifts Danny’s weight carefully, lowers him to the ground with arms that are trembling from the added strain. Danny helps as best he can, but his best isn’t much at this point, and his eyes close the moment he’s on the ground, propped against a fallen log. Steve shakes him by his good knee.
“No sleeping yet, Danno. I want to check you over again, make sure you’re still mostly in one piece. You cold?” It’s a stupid question, because Danny’s shivering now that he’s no longer moving and pressed up against Steve, who always runs a little hot anyway. He rummages in the first aid kit, rips open one of the emergency thermal blanket packets, and unfolds it, the foil crinkling loudly in the still air.
Danny forces his eyes open as Steve tucks the blanket around him. “Mistake me for a baked potato?”
“No jokes about food when I’m hungry,” he orders, ripping open another packet and carefully sliding it under Danny’s back, and cursing himself for not having done that first. “How’s your head?”
“How’d you think?”
He ignores the tone. Danny’s entitled to be a little testy by now. “Still seeing double?”
“Just fuzzy,” Danny drapes an arm over his eyes in an attempt to block out the dwindling light. “Leg’s fucking killing me.”
“Yeah, I bet,” Steve runs his hands the length of the splint, checking to make sure it hasn’t come loose or shifted too much after the day’s exertion, but his first-aid skills appear to have been up to the task. “There’s only aspirin in the first aid kit, and I’m not giving you a blood thinner if I can help it.”
Danny grunts. “Kind of beyond aspirin, anyway. ‘s it me, or is it cold?”
“It’s you, Danno.”
“Shit. Fucking stupid way to die. Hate helicopters.”
“You’re not dying!” Steve snaps.
“Right,” Danny says tiredly. “Forgot. Sorry.”
Steve reaches out, then, nudges Danny’s arm aside, and lays a hand against his forehead. “I mean it, Danno. I’m not going to let you die out here. You trust me, right?”
Danny nods tightly, but he meets Steve’s gaze firmly, expression oddly tender. “Yeah, I do.”
“Okay, good,” Steve swallows a sudden lump in his throat. “So trust me on this. No one is dying today.”
“Apart from those guys from before.”
“Yeah, well, they had it coming,” Steve says grimly, and to his surprise Danny laughs at that.
“You’re a lunatic,” he wheezes. “Completely out of your mind. I’m trapped in the rainforest with a dislocated knee, a concussion and probably internal bleeding with a raving madman who thinks that dumping people in shark cages is all part and parcel of due process. How is this even my life?”
Steve rolls his eyes, a little dizzy trying to keep up with the ups and downs of his partner’s emotions. Danny’s mercurial at the best of times, but throw in a little injury, blood loss and shock, and he’s a goddamned roller coaster. “I was hoping having a concussion would make you more agreeable, but apparently I was mistaken.”
“He wants me to be agreeable,” Danny addresses the heavens, flicking one hand disdainfully. “Swear to God… Any chance of water?” he asks hopefully.
Steve purses his lips. “I can give you a sip, but not more. We're already pushing this.”
“So unfair,” Danny complains. He does sit up a bit, though, and swallows a mouthful of water from the canteen Steve holds for him. “Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. If we’re still stranded tomorrow we'll revisit the water situation.” He doesn't mention that if they're still stranded tomorrow, food will be the least of their worries.
“Look forward to it.”
The ground’s too wet for a fire, even if it didn’t mean leaving Danny alone and unprotected while he went in search of kindling. Steve chokes down a couple of mouthfuls of jerky, forcing himself to eat because he knows he has to, but he finds he doesn't have much of an appetite after the day they've had. He should be ravenous, but he feels like his stomach has twisted itself into a giant knot from anxiety and exhaustion.
The adrenaline has long since worn off, he figures, watching Danny’s chest rise and fall with increasing rapidity. He checks his partner again, noting with alarm that there's a bluish tint to his lips now. He can feel that Danny’s hands have turned ice cold, that his good leg isn’t in much better shape. Shock and blood loss and all the exertion finally taking its toll. He’s surprised it’s taken this long –trust Danny to be an ornery son of a bitch even when it comes to injury.
Night falls faster than he was expecting, somehow, the shadows lengthening rapidly and plunging the forest into almost pitch darkness. He can barely make out Danny’s silhouette on the ground, though he can still hear him breathing, which is something of a reassurance. All around them, the rainforest comes to life with the sounds of the night animals stirring and beginning their rounds. It all seems so much louder at night, with no daylight to distract him from the noise –deafening, almost. Danny shifts uncomfortably on the ground next to him.
“What the fuck is that? Crickets on steroids?” He sounds both annoyed and curious, which is a combination that only Danny Williams could ever manage, Steve is sure of it.
He lets out a surprised bark of laughter. “No, that’s the coqi frogs. I never realized how loud they are. No wonder people are pissed off.”
“Do I even want to know?”
“They’re a pest. Got brought over from Puerto Rico, and since they’ve got no natural predators they’re spreading all over the place.”
“Like those toads in Australia.”
“Exactly. People are pissed because the noise drives down property values.”
“You know, you’re not exactly making a convincing case to me for this entire state not being insane. Property values?”
“Apparently sometimes they’re loud enough to drown out the TV set in people’s homes. I don’t know, there aren’t any near where I live.” Steve shrugs, even though Danny can’t see him in the dark. “They aren’t keeping you up, are they?” he teases.
“No…” Danny shifts again, and something in his tone makes Steve’s stomach clench.
“You okay?”
“Cold.”
There aren’t anymore thermal blankets, but it’s obviously not enough. He slides over next to his partner. “Okay. Don’t take this the wrong way,” he jokes nervously, lifting the edge of the blanket and sliding under it. “Just going to try to get you warmed up a bit.”
Danny chuffs a laugh. “Love you too, McGarrett,” he murmurs.
Steve freezes, completely at a loss as to how to take the statement. Come on, he tells himself, just pull it together, and you can worry about that later. He puts his arm carefully over Danny’s chest, careful not to apply pressure, presses in along his side, and is relieved and kind of pleased when Danny settles against him with a quiet sigh.
“You’re warm,” Danny murmurs.
“You’re just cold.”
“There’s a joke in there about red-blooded American males, but I can’t find it,” Danny shifts again, not that Steve can blame him –he’s long since passed the age where sleeping on the ground is comfortable even under the best of circumstances. “I’m sorry about this,” he murmurs unexpectedly.
Steve blinks. “What the hell are you sorry for?”
“If it weren’t for me, you’d probably be safe back home by now. I know how much I slowed you down and, uh…”
“Danny, shut up.” He can feel his partner’s surprise, and presses his advantage before he can recover and start talking again. “I’m not in the habit of leaving people behind. Not my family, not my team, not anyone. And definitely not you, even if you don’t like pineapple. And it’s frankly insulting that you’d suggest I would.”
“Wasn’t suggesting that,” Danny’s voice is failing, and Steve tightens his hold on him instinctively. “I was just trying to say thank you, you jackass.”
“Funny way of saying it.”
“You’re not leaving.”
It’s not a question, but he treats it like one anyway. “No, I’m not leaving you. Promise.”
Danny doesn’t answer, but Steve can tell he’s still awake and heard him just fine. Eventually, Danny’s breathing evens out a little, and he lapses into a fitful doze. It’s all Steve can do to keep himself awake, even with the chorus of coqi frogs chirping loudly all around them. More than once he dozes off only to jerk awake again, heart jack-rabbitting in his chest, eyes tracking wildly for some unseen danger,
The third time he wakens it’s morning, though early enough that not all of the mist has lifted from the ground. He feels groggier than he has any right to, and his entire body aches and throbs now that it's had time to stiffen up overnight. Slowly he becomes aware of Danny moving restlessly next to him, though he doesn’t rouse when Steve whispers his name nor give any indication that he can hear him at all. He’s breathing raggedly, struggling weakly against something Steve can’t see, and when Steve leans over him he can just make out the word “Grace” on his partner’s lips.
“Easy, Danno,” he says softly, raising a hand to smooth it over Danny’s forehead. “You’re okay. Grace is fine, nothing to worry about.”
The words have their intended effect, because Danny instantly relaxes under his touch, eyes opening to look up at him. “You’ll watch out for her, right?” he grabs Steve’s wrist, fingers pressing against the pulse point there. “You'll tell her―”
“What did I tell you about getting out of this?” Steve interrupts, feeling his heart skip a beat at the sound of Danny's words. They sound too final to be comforting. “You tell her yourself, Danno.”
“Let’s call it… hedging my bets. Promise me?”
“If I promise, you have to promise to hang on until I get us home.”
“Fair ‘nough.”
Danny’s eyes close again, and this time he doesn’t respond at all to Steve’s touch or any other attempt to wake him. His lips have turned a worrying shade of blue, his fingers ice-cold in Steve's hand, his breathing growing increasingly shallow. There’s no way to move him now, Steve thinks, trying to clamp down on the panic rising in his chest. For the first time he’s really beginning to understand why they take people off cases where they have personal connections. He’s trained to deal with this sort of thing, has dealt with it countless times before, but it’s Danny and every time he let himself think about the very real consequences of what he’s doing it feels like part of his mind –the rational, useful part of his mind that would let him treat Danny’s injuries and make the right sort of decision to keep them both safe– just shuts down entirely, replaced with red blinking lights and a cartoon siren that just won’t shut up.
“Hang in there, Danno,” he manages, though the words choke him a little. “Search and rescue are going to be heading up again soon, and we’re not so far off-course that this won’t be part of the search grid. I just need you to hang in there a little longer. You promised.”
There’s still nothing with which to build a fire, but he liberates one of the thermal blankets and spreads it in the clearing, figuring it’s reflective enough to catch the sunlight, if the vog isn’t too thick. It’s impossible to tell from the ground, but Steve has always considered himself an optimist, and so he sets about making them as visible as possible from the air, moving stiffly as his muscles seize up and cramp from all the abuse they've sustained over the past day. When he’s checked and double-checked everything he lets himself collapse next to Danny, the moisture from the ground seeping through his already-damp khakis, and checks Danny’s pulse for what feels like the hundredth time.
“You’re still hanging in there, right?” he asks softly, even though Danny’s long past hearing him. “Don't you fucking dare die on me, Danno. Not now.”
He stares up at the sky, willing a helicopter to appear overhead. Hell, he’ll settle for a hang-glider at this point, if it means any sign of human life. There’s nothing, though, not even static from the useless radio he liberated from their attackers yesterday. He doesn't know how long he spends like that, only that after a while it feels like all his muscles are on fire from being in the same position and he's a little dizzy, probably from having eaten next to nothing since yesterday morning. He thinks to check his watch for the first time since before they took off, only to realize that it's broken. The sun tells him it's fast going on midday and it worries him a little in a distant, niggling fashion that he hasn't really felt the time go by.
It’s then that he hears it. At first he tells himself he’s imagining the distant drone, but it comes steadily closer, and he all but whoops for joy, scrambling to his feet in spite of his aching muscles and spinning head. When he’s positive the helicopter is within visual range he pulls out the flare gun, aims it above his head and fires, watching it arc up into the sky, leaving a crimson trail of smoke behind it as it falls. Then he drops to one knee and gives Danny's shoulder a triumphant squeeze.
“Told you we’d be okay, Danny. You just have to hold on a few more minutes, okay? Just a few minutes, and we’re home free. Just hold on.”
~*~
“Hey, boss, you awake?”
Kono’s voice filters through the fog in his head. He opens his eyes, tasting something similar to cotton wool in his mouth. His head feels strangely heavy, like he’s gotten out of the habit of lifting it. The rest of him feels like he's floating a few inches over his bed. Slowly his rookie’s smiling face comes into focus.
“Hey, you’re back with us!” she exclaims, looking pleased, which is nice, he thinks dazedly. He doesn’t remember the last time someone looked that happy to see him.
There’s the distinctive smell of antiseptic in the air that tells him he’s in a hospital, and for a moment he can’t remember how he got here, or even what happened that would make a hospital necessary. He’s not in any pain that he can tell… and that’s when it all comes back in a rush.
“Danny…”
He struggles to sit up, but everything’s a little swimmy and weird, and Kono shoves him unceremoniously back onto the hospital bed. “Stay put, boss. Don’t make the nice doctors drug you into submission again, okay? You’re still dehydrated and all that, so let the IV do its thing, and I promise I’ll answer every question you’ve got.”
He lets his head fall back against the thin hospital-issue pillow. He only has the vaguest recollection of the chopper ride, arriving at the hospital, but he does remember not wanting to let Danny out of his sight until he was sure he was okay. After that, nothing. That’s probably when they sedated him, he thinks ruefully. So much for keeping a cool head in a crisis.
“Where’s Danny?”
“He’s in surgery, where he’s been for the last…” Kono checks her watch, “five hours or so. We don’t know anything yet,” she lays a hand on his arm, “but I promise you’ll be the first person we'll tell when there’s news. You want some water? You sound pretty hoarse. There’s even a straw.” She rolls up the bed so he can sit up, hands him a plastic cup of water.
“How bad is it?” It does feel better to talk once he’s had a drink of water.
She makes a noncommittal gesture that’s not quite a shrug. “He’s bleeding internally, so they’re doing exploratory surgery to fix that. After that, nobody knows. You know how it goes with these things. Don’t worry,” she adds, “Danny’s a fighter. He’ll pull through just fine, you’ll see.”
He nods. “Fill me in on the rest?”
“I was kind of hoping for the opposite. Hang on, let me get Chin, he’s fielding the paperwork.”
Chin Ho looks equally pleased to see him, and it occurs to Steve, not for the first time, that he got really lucky in his team. They might be the most eccentric team ever put together in the history of all task forces, but he’s led trained men in the field sometimes for years without any of them forming the easy attachment and deep loyalties this crew has demonstrated over the past few months. Chin gives him an odd look, and Steve realizes that he must be telegraphing his thoughts more than usual in his expressions. Stupid drugs.
“Good to see you awake,” Chin awards him a smile which tells Steve that he was probably acting more than a little crazy before the sedatives were administered. He winces.
“Was I that bad?”
“Extenuating circumstances. I don’t think anyone can be blamed for losing it a little after something like that.”
He lets his head drop into the palm of his hand. “Okay, apart from the stuff I’m never going to live down, what can you tell me?”
“You sure you want to do this now?” Kono sounds like she’s worried and trying not to show it. “This can all wait a day, at least until you’re back on your feet.”
He shakes his head. “We’ll do a formal debrief later, but for now…”
“Okay,” Kono pulls out her notebook. “It’s pretty straightforward on our end. When you didn’t come back on schedule, we sent out search and rescue in the general vicinity of your last known coordinates. Control told us hours later that there was an attempt at communication earlier, which they think might have been your mayday, but reception was fucked and nobody could make heads or tails of it or even tell where it came from. Might have been interference, or deliberate signal jamming, there’s no way to be sure at this point. Search and rescue located your crash site, but there wasn’t any sign of you there. And then, of course, there were the bodies about five hundred yards out...” she pauses and looks at him meaningfully.
He nods.“Yeah, I’ll explain that in a bit.”
“So by then visibility was too poor to keep going. We regrouped this morning, and that’s when you were found. Your turn,” she says pointedly.
It’s deceptively easy to sum up everything that’s happened in the last day, and yet the few sentences it takes to describe the attack, the crash, the men who came after them in the forest, all seems pathetically inadequate to convey all of it. He should be used to this by now, he thinks a little bitterly, trying to describe combat to non-combatants without freaking them out. But Chin and Kono aren’t exactly civilians, either. Luckily, they both seem to understand without his having to draw them a picture or walk them through it more than he already has. He finishes his cup of water, then reaches to unhook his IV, fully intending to get the hell out of this bed and go find the waiting room outside Danny’s operating room, only to find himself being rather forcefully grabbed and pushed back onto his bed.
“You’re staying put,” Chin says firmly. “Doctor’s orders.”
“That ridiculous,” he sputters. “I’m fine. I came out of that with bruises and a couple of scratches. I’m fine,” he insists, seeing their expressions.
“Except for how you survived a helicopter crash,” Kono points out, “and they’re keeping you under observation for twenty-four hours. And they’ve made it perfectly clear that if you don’t cooperate with us, they’re going to take more drastic measures,” she adds grimly.
Steve snorts. “They can’t do that if I don’t consent.”
“Fine. Then I will take more drastic measures. Stay. Put.”
Chin grins at him. “If it were me, I wouldn’t argue.”
Steve’s head starts to ache. He’s too damned tired for this, and all he wants is to be there when they get Danny out of surgery. “I just want to see how Danny is…” he mutters mutinously, and much to his embarrassment, Kono pats his knee.
“I told you, we won’t know anything until he’s out of surgery, and we don’t know how long that’s going to take. So how about you trust us to tell you when it’s time, okay? Come on,” her tone turns ever so slightly coaxing. “You’re exhausted, and you can’t do Danny any good if you run yourself into the ground. He’ll bounce back, but he’ll need you to be a hundred percent, right?”
“Just take a nap, brah,” Chin says reasonably. “We'll wake you the minute Danny's out of surgery.”
He's too tired to argue, his eyes already closing, and he can't tell if it's because he's truly exhausted or if the sedatives are still having an effect. The last thing he's aware of is Kono's hand on his arm, warm and reassuring.
The next time he opens his eyes, Chin is shaking him gently by the shoulder. “Wake up, brah. Danny's out of surgery, but they're not letting anyone see him yet. Figured you'd want to be awake for what the doctor has to say, especially since you're the guy whose name is on the emergency paperwork.”
He nods, scrubs the remnants of sleep from his eyes ―and notes that he's desperately in need of a shave as he rubs a hand over his face― and only grudgingly submits to the nurse's insistence that he remain in the wheelchair provided by the hospital. “For liability purposes, I assure you. You don't want us to get sued, do you?”
The news isn't terrible, but it's not exactly encouraging, either, not that Steve was expecting a miracle, even if he'd allowed himself to hope... The doctor's face is serious, all business as he delivers his news.
“We were able to locate and stop the bleeding, which was the most immediate threat, but he's got a hard road ahead of him. The surgery was hard on him –his heart stopped twice while we were operating on him, though we were able to bring him back without too much difficulty. We'll be monitoring him closely for the next forty-eight hours, and if he pulls through, then I can safely say the outlook will be a lot better for him. He's developed an infection, which isn't unusual but is cause for concern, so we’ll be keeping a close eye on him for that too.”
Steve nods, glad to note Kono is taking notes, because he’s not sure he’s going to remember any of this tomorrow. All he can think right now is that Danny’s heart stopped, and he wasn’t even awake for it. “Can I see him?”
“He’s in intensive care,” the doctor equivocates, then relents under the effect of three simultaneous glares. “One person at a time. We’ve had to put him on a ventilator to assist with his breathing, and he won’t be waking up anytime soon, so you need to be prepared and be patient.”
Chin works some sort of administrative magic –and not for the first time Steve congratulates himself on the second-best choice he made while making up his team– and Steve finds himself with complete access to Danny, if he wants it, and he does. Someone brings in a reclining chair so he can sit by Danny’s bed and still get some sleep, and that’s where he spends the next two days, listening to the hypnotic click-whoosh of the ventilator, and watching Danny like a hawk for any sign that he might be coming out of it. There’s work piling up at the office, dozens of calls unanswered and ignored on his cell phone, which is turned off and left somewhere to rot, for all he cares.
For all that he's just come out of major surgery, Danny looks a lot better than Steve remembers. His face is still pale under the gauze bandage, but it's no longer the sickly shade of washed-out grey as before, and his lips and fingernails have pinked up again. Nurses come and go quietly, checking on his vital signs and changing the bandages from the surgery on his leg and abdomen. Steve moves out of their way when they're working, but otherwise he sticks as close to Danny's bedside as he can without actually sitting on it. He finds himself watching Danny's hands, unnervingly still and lax at his sides, the fingers curling in slightly toward his palms. It's unsettling to be in the same room with Danny and not hear his voice, bitching loudly about whatever subject has caught his attention, hands in constant motion. Seeing him motionless... it's just unnatural.
Rachel visits once, but she doesn't come again once Steve promises he'll keep her up to speed on Danny's progress so that she can tell Grace. While she's there she stares at Danny with a pinched, haunted look on her face and leaves so abruptly that he can't help but be reminded of a tactical retreat. He watches her go and wonders just how long she's been dreading a moment just like this one, even long after her divorce.
There’s no magical moment in which Danny wakes up and everything gets set to rights again, but forty-eight hours pass, and he’s still hanging on, and so Steve just settles himself in to wait for the long haul. He learns the names of the ICU nurses, lets Chin and Kono bring him coffee and the occasional sandwich, and becomes better-versed in the workings of the human body than he ever really wanted to be. Danny gets weaned off the ventilator excruciatingly slowly, but it’s progress, and at this point Steve will take what he can get. Eventually the doctor allows himself to cautiously suggest an orthopaedic consult for Danny’s knee, once he’s awake and suitably recovered from the internal injuries and surgery, and Steve grins at him. The fact that Danny’s probably going to need multiple surgeries on his leg might be the best news he’s had in his entire life, because it means Danny’s going to live to need them.
Danny’s been in the hospital for five days, and off the ventilator for a little over forty-eight hours when he finally opens his eyes, and in spite of all of Steve’s efforts to make damned well sure that he’s there for it, he’s managed to doze off in the chair by Danny’s bed when it does happen. He comes awake with a start to find bright blue eyes fixed on him, though Danny hasn’t said a word yet. In a flash he’s on his feet, reaching for his partner’s hand and leaning over the bed. He can feel a stupid grin spreading over his face, but can’t bring himself to care.
“Hey, you with me?”
Danny nods carefully, as though he’s a little worried his head might come off his shoulders if he makes too sudden a movement. Five days' worth of beard growth makes him look older than he is, and careworn.
“W’happen’?” His voice breaks, comes out as little more than a hoarse croak.
Steve reaches for the cup of ice that’s been left by the bed, a little melted by now but still good enough, and holds a spoonful to his lips. “You’re in the hospital,” he says, entirely unnecessarily judging by the eyeroll he gets in response. “Do you remember the crash?”
Danny’s eyes close for a few seconds as he concentrates, then they open again, and he nods. “Hate helicopters,” he says with a wan smile and Steve grins at him so hard he thinks his face might actually split in half.
“Search and rescue found us, and not a minute too soon, I might add. You scared the shit out of me, Danno,” he adds quietly. “I thought we might have been too late…”
Danny swallows painfully and accepts another spoonful of ice chips. “You didn’t give up,” he points out. “Couldn’t let you win, could I? Never live it down…”
It’s physically impossible for Steve to grin any wider. “Exactly.”
“You look like hell, Steve.”
“Yeah, well, you're not exactly winning any beauty pageants yourself these days,” Steve rolls his eyes, can't stop grinning anyway.
“I fell out of a helicopter. What's your excuse?” Danny tries to sit up, winces and gives up. “So… how bad is it?”
Steve shrugs, sobering a little. “No reason you won’t bounce back from this, the doctor says, but it’s going to take a while. Maybe surgery on your knee, they’re saying, and lots of rehab. You okay?” he asks, as Danny shifts with another wince. “Need anything for pain? I should call someone…” he reaches for the call button on the bed.
“It’s fine, babe, leave it. In a minute,” Danny flaps a hand at him weakly.
“Okay, if you’re sure…” He hesitates, fumbling for the right words to formulate what’s been running through his mind ever since Danny came out of surgery. “So, I’ve been thinking…”
“I was wondering where the smell of burning rubber was coming from,” Danny murmurs, and Steve laughs in spite of himself.
“Shut up and let me finish. I was thinking that it doesn’t make sense for you to go back to your old apartment. There are a million stairs–”
“A million?”
“Lots of stairs,” Steve amends, fixing his gaze on the bed and fiddling with the edge of the sheet, not quite daring to meet Danny’s eyes. “And it’s kind of small and cramped and it would be hard for you to get around. My place is closer to the hospital anyway, and I have more room than I know what to do with, and it’s not like you don’t already let yourself in on a regular basis, so it wouldn’t change much for you that way. And if, you know, you’re worried about Grace, or something, I have a guest room, and I could talk it over with Rachel, and she could, you know, come by and make sure she’s okay with it too, and–”
“McGarrett,” Danny interrupts his rambling, and never has Steve felt more grateful for an interruption in his entire life.
“Yeah?”
“Are you asking me to move in with you?”
“Um. Yes.”
“Okay, then.”
“So… is that a yes?”
“It’s not a no. Have to think about it. It’s not exactly ideal, you know, as living arrangements go.”
Steve tries to swallow his disappointment. After all, it’s unreasonable of him to assume that Danny will jump at the chance to go live in the same house with him. By Danny’s standards, they barely know each other, even if the past few days have taught Steve that he doesn’t really like the idea of ever being apart from his partner ever again. He can’t expect Danny to feel the same way, he tells himself sharply, then looks up to find Danny grinning at him, and unexpected warmth floods through him.
“You asshole,” he swats Danny lightly on the shoulder. “That’s really mean. I’ve been worried sick, and this is the thanks I get?”
Danny laughs. “Hey, watch it! No hitting the trauma patient! I totally had you going, though, didn’t I?” He settles back on his bed, eyes closing, and Steve can see what little energy he had is fading quickly.
“Yes, you did. Asshole,” he repeats, just in case the message didn’t get through the first time. “So… it’s a yes, then?”
“You really need me to spell this out? Maybe sign a contract in my blood?” Danny murmurs.
“Keep your blood, you’ve lost enough as it is.” Steve reaches out to smooth Danny’s hair away from his forehead, then takes Danny’s hand again, reassuring himself that he’s not actually dreaming any of this. “And, uh, yeah. I kind of need to know you’re on board with this too.”
Danny doesn’t open his eyes, but he squeezes Steve’s fingers, and his next words make Steve’s heart do a weird skipping thing in his chest that he is never going to admit to in public.
“Yeah, babe, I’m on board.”
~END~
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