(Italicized dialogue from S1E4, please pretend it's properly cited, yada yada yada.)

Danny sat awkwardly on the narrow exam bed. He hated going to the doctor, hated it for so many reasons, not the least of which was how his feet dangled above the floor on these stupid beds. His idiot partner, who spent a ridiculous amount of time in the local ERs - seriously, every paramedic in the county knew his drug allergies by heart - could oh-so-casually prop a hip on the closest available gurney and still his stupid long giraffe legs reached the floor.

He sighed and drug his attention back to what the doctor was saying.

"He drove a car onto a boat?" the doctor asked, head tilted in confusion.

"Yeah. He's an animal. And I sorta get the feeling that he's just getting warmed up."

"Ouch."

"Yeah. So, how do I fix it?"

"You get a new partner."

"Yeah, I'd like that, but I don't think that's gonna happen."

The doctor turned to the image on the light screen. "Well... I'm seeing a slight tear on the ACL." He glanced pointedly at Danny's phone as it began to ring. "So, you're going to have to stay off that knee for a couple of weeks, physical therapy, and I'll put you on . . ." another pointed glance at the ringing phone, ". . .some anti-inflammatories."

Danny looked at his screen and sighed. "Can I get those, uh, to go? Please?"

Steve frowned as he joined Danny at the crime scene.

"What happened to you?" he asked, scowling at the cane.

"Oh," Danny said, glancing down at his knee. "Uh, I blame you. I tore my ACL somewhere in the last few weeks, all the fun we've been having together."

"All right. Well, once you're done bitching about your boo-boo, I'd love to know what's going on here."

Steve sighed and scrubbed his hand over his face. It had been a long day, and little had gone according to plan - basketball at the prison, lunch with Mary at their father's gravesite - days like this made him a little wistful for the structure and routine of the military. He glanced out to the open central room where Chin was shutting down the main system for the night. Danny had been gone when he returned from getting Mary settled - some nonsense about setting up PT for his knee. He assumed Kono was gone, too, probably hoping to catch some twilight surfing.

Except Kono wasn't gone, apparently, she'd changed into her denim cut-off shorts, though, and was sauntering barefoot into his office. She waved off-handedly to Chin as she came through Steve's office door and plunked a file and a tablet onto the corner of his desk. Arms crossed, she stood and pondered him for a moment.

"Kono?" he said, uncertainly. "Thought you'd gone home."

"Not yet," she replied, then calmly sat down - just sat, right down - on the top of his desk - and propped her long, tan legs on his lap.

Okay. Well. That was unexpected.

Steve stirred a bit uncomfortably and had no idea what to do with his hands. He glanced nervously toward Chin, and got a raised eyebrow and a shrug before Chin turned and headed toward the elevator.

"Um, Kono?" he squeaked. He'd never been attracted to Kono, hadn't really given it a passing thought, partly because his passing thoughts were increasingly . . . well, never mind, but he was only human. Really.

"Shut up," she said fondly. "Look."

She was pointing to her knee, so he dutifully peered closer to where her neatly trimmed nail was pointing. He could see it; a faint scar.

"And here, and here," she said, indicating two other scars. They were faint, but unmistakable once she pointed them out.

"I use a cotton swab and self-tanning lotion, every three days, to keep the color even with my skin," she said, conversationally. "Sometimes more frequently, depending on how much I'm surfing; sometimes less if you have us working around the clock for days on end for a case. I do stretching exercises every day and strengthening exercises three times a week. I see my orthopaedic surgeon once a year, and my physical therapist once a month."

Steve's finger traced over the scars as she grabbed her tablet and file from the corner of his desk.

"Here," she said. "This is the patient information pamphlet on ACL surgery. That's what I tore when I blew out my knee, and ended my surfing career. I tore my ACL, and I had to have surgery. Then months of physical therapy. I worked my physical therapy appointments around my schedule at the academy. They actually said I might not be able to pass the physical requirement for the force but . . . " Kono rolled her eyes and made a dismissive gesture. As if.

Steve looked at the pamphlet. It showed a diagram of a knee, with three incisions, and a big, scary looking tube coming out of one of them, and what looked like two instruments of torture going in to the other two. The fact that it was printed in a soothing sage green didn't really help much. He pulled his head back slightly as Kono thrust her tablet in front of his face, and hit the triangle button to start a video.

"One of the smaller ESPN channels asked to do a documentary on my injury and recovery," she explained, as the video began with footage of the gorgeous Hawaiian surf. "The offer included a fee to go against my medical bills, so I agreed."

Steve watched as the footage of her accident played out in front of him. In super slow motion, he watched her fall - several times - a helpful red circle pointing out her knee as it bent -

Oh dear Lord in heaven. Knees weren't made to bend that way.

"Shit," he breathed out, and instinctively wrapped his huge hand around her knee, as if by holding it steady now he could somehow change what he was seeing on the screen.

The video continued, and images of Kono's swollen, mangled knee continued to float before his eyes. If it looked awful in sage green, it looked absolutely horrifying in living color. The narrator cheerily explained that while the surgery itself was sometimes done on an outpatient basis, the injury took weeks, even months, to heal, and the pain was excruciating.

Kono flipped the cover of the tablet closed with perhaps a little more force than necessary.

"So," she said, setting it aside, "I shredded my ACL. Like, totally shredded it. There's reconstruction, and stuff . . . I don't know, I was so drugged the first few weeks, and so devastated, I didn't pay terribly close attention to what they did to fix it. I focused on getting strong enough to pass the exam for the academy, because I couldn't let myself think too much about the end of my surfing career."

"I'm so sorry, Kono," Steve said sincerely, looking up into her warm brown eyes.

She nodded. "I'll have to be careful. With my knee. Keep up with the routine, the exercises, the visits. Another injury . . . I might not come back from it. Not back to being able to do this job."

She gave him a moment to let that sink in, then continued. "Danny's knee is too swollen to drive safely; he might not be able to brake quickly enough to avoid an accident. So, Chin drove him over to set up his PT appointments, and gave him a ride home, and then came back to the office. But I picked Danny up this morning, drove him to his doctor's appointment."

She stopped, looked down at Steve. "Drove him to the crime scene," she added quietly, "where he got out of the car, on his bad knee, with his cane, and got right back to work, and didn't waste any time bitching about his boo-boo."

Steve swallowed hard.

"He has a tear on his ACL," she continued, "and it's more painful than you can imagine. I know this, because, despite it being a common injury among football players, you've obviously never damaged your ACL. Danny was given class three narcotics to try to help manage the pain, because that's what it takes. Of course, he didn't take them, because he was on the job. As your partner."

Kono picked her file up, and pulled out another pamphlet. "Here's a diagram of a small tear on an ACL. See, a little tear right there? That's about what Danny's looks like."

That knee didn't look too bad. At least there weren't torture devices sticking out of that knee. Kono turned the page over.

"And here's what happens, if a little tear doesn't heal," she continued. Okay, the knee on the back of the page looked bad. Really bad. "A small tear weakens the ACL, making it exponentially more susceptible to injury. Which, while it was stupid and endearing and so typically Danny to ditch the drugs so he could help you solve the case, it's also good, in a terrible sort of way, that he didn't take them. Because he might not have been as careful with the knee if he wasn't in agonizing pain."

Kono's voice was gentle, and her eyes compassionate, as she delivered the words to him that made him feel like the biggest jackass in the history of jackasses.

"What I'm saying, Steve, is that Danny needs to be careful, and his knee needs to heal. Or he could end up shredding his ACL. An injury like that . . . it could take him away from Five-O, from HPD."

Steve dropped his head in dismay, but Kono's long, cool fingers cupped his face and turned his eyes up to meet hers. "An injury like that . . . it could take him away from you."

Her eyes were twinkling and knowing, and Steve felt his eyes widen in response.

"Kono," he said protesting, "I - what - "

She threw back her head and laughed. "Oh, Steve. Honestly. I did graduate from the academy; I have some basic skills of observation and deduction."

He stared at her, flabbergasted.

"Oh," she said, her dimples flashing. "You hadn't even quite figured it out yourself, had you? That's adorable."

"What do I do, Kono?" he asked. She arched an eyebrow at him. "About the knee," he clarified. Good Lord, he couldn't wrap his brain around any other advice from Kono. Yet.

She nodded seriously. "He's going to need alternating ice and warm packs, preferably round the clock for at least the next twelve hours. He can piggyback some over the counter Advil with the Tylenol 3 his doctor gave him to give more consistent pain relief. He will need to keep something in his stomach - crackers, ginger ale, that sort of thing - in case the codeine upsets his stomach."

Steve nodded and grabbed a notepad off his desk, taking down instructions in his precise script, his tongue poking out adorably as he concentrated. Okay, so Kono was only human too. Really.

His pen paused and he looked up at her expectantly through his ridiculous lashes. Kono sighed. Seriously, all the good ones . . .

"He needs to keep the knee bent in a neutral position, like so -" she demonstrated. "He needs to be at PT starting day after tomorrow, and Steve - he needs to keep all of those appointments. No matter what case we're working on. He shouldn't drive for at least a week. I'm telling you everything because I know he won't. He won't tell you this."

Steve nodded and kept writing.

"He needs to not put any strain on that knee until it heals, Steve, and I mean it," Kono said, still looking down at him from her perch on his desk. Kono was tall; thin, and lithe, and half his size, but honestly not that much shorter than him. It was a bit disconcerting to look up at her but he felt the position was entirely appropriate, given the circumstances.

He nodded solemnly. "What else?"

Kono thought for a moment. "Well, I was completely immobile, and thankfully, Danny isn't. But still - it's painful, and it's a pain in the ass, not to be able to do the things that you're used to doing. Little things, like driving, and picking up groceries easily, and . . . wow, he won't be able to pick Gracie up; she's getting big, and his knee will be way too unstable for a while. So, you'll have to figure out how to help him with stuff like that. Without insulting or emasculating him."

"Oh, just that?" Steve asked, slightly exasperated.

"Well, it's going to be a challenge, obviously, especially for you, Commander Callous and Insensitive, but you need to manage," Kono said. "It's important," she added emphatically. "We like Danny. We need Danny. Don't screw it up."

Kono patted his shoulder solidly as she slipped effortlessly off his desk.

Steve sighed. Somehow this was about a lot more than Danny's knee and he was definitely, absolutely, completely out of his depth.

Steve started to ring the doorbell of Danny's apartment, then remembered that Danny was supposed to be off his knee, alternating ice and heatpacks. So he shifted a couple of bags from one hand to the other and fished his keyring out of his pocket, fumbling with it until he located Danny's key. After a bit of jiggling - seriously, Danny needed to get out of this apartment, this was not remotely secure - he turned the handle and poked his head inside the door.

"Danny? Danno?" he called softly.

A mussed blond head popped up and blue eyes peered at him over the back of the sofa.

"Steve? What? What's wrong? Is Mary okay?" Danny fired off questions as he struggled to sit up.

"No, Danny, no, everything is okay. Mary's fine. Stay put," Steve said, closing and locking the door behind him. He entered the tiny room and stood hesitantly in front of Danny, shifting the bags back and forth between his hands, which suddenly seemed too large.

Danny looked up at him while Steve tried to figure out what to say.

"Steven, I'm getting a kink in my neck, do you mind . . ." Danny said, gesturing to the coffee table in front of him.

Steve huffed out a breath and dropped the bags on the coffee table, sitting carefully on the edge and facing Danny. "How's, um, how's your knee feeling, Danny?"

Danny waved a hand dismissively over his knee. "It's fine, Steve. Just a little boo-boo." Danny smiled, but it failed to reach his expressive blue eyes.

"Danny, look - I'm sorry. I was - I really didn't pay attention; I didn't stop to think what it really meant, that you had injured your ACL. And I should have; I've heard of that injury, plenty of times. I know it's painful, and serious."

Danny nodded, studying Steve somewhat skeptically.

Steve took a deep breath. "Kono - well, when she blew out her knee surfing. It was her ACL. She completely shredded it, apparently. She, um, she showed me some stuff. A video. Of her knee." He shuddered in memory.

"Ah," Danny said. "So you've been guilted into coming to apologize?"

"No," Steve said emphatically. This was not going according to plan. Not that he'd had a plan. Not really. Don't screw this up, he heard Kono saying. "Kono made sure I was properly informed and educated as to the nature of your injury, and I came . . ." he broke off, rummaging in the pharmacy bag and pulling out the contents as he continued, "to make sure you had enough ice and heat packs, and plenty of ibuprofen, and to drive you to work in the morning." He paused. "And I came to apologize, not because Kono guilted me into it, but because I owe you an apology. I'm sorry, Danny," he said.

Danny contemplated him for a moment, bringing his considerable experience as a detective to suss out tone and intent: pure sincerity, with a hint of insecurity and overlayed with . . . affection. Interesting.

"What's in the other bag?" Danny asked, his eyes crinkling at Steve with a sincere smile.

"Malasadas," Steve said, smiling back hesitantly.

"Okay, well that's good, because I have to take another dose of that medicine and I don't want to puke it back up," Danny said. "I need to hit the head; grab us some napkins and coffee out of the kitchen, will ya?"

Steve's smile was open and unguarded, and a completely different smile than Danny had seen before. He wanted to see it more. A lot more.

"It's okay if I stay?" Steve asked over his shoulder, heading to what passed for a kitchen, and the undisguised longing in his voice unfurled the tiny tendril of hope that Danny had kept firmly denied in the furthest recesses of his brain.

"Yeah, you big goof, it's okay if you stay," he said.

"Geez, Danny," Steve muttered. After overdoing all day, the ice was a bit on the too little too late side, and Danny's knee was swelling against the elastic bandage. Assuring him that his extensive SEAL medic training meant that he could easily rewrap the joint, Steve had gently unwound the bandage, and revealed Danny's knee in all its bruised and swollen glory. "That looks terrible," Steve added.

"Thank you, yes, I'm aware," Danny said somewhat primly.

"Okay, so another twenty minutes of ice, then I'll rewrap it," Steve said. He popped up and fetched a fresh flexible cold pack from the freezer, wrapped it in a towel, and placed it cautiously on Danny's knee.

Danny hissed at the sensation, but then sighed as the cold pack took the edge off the pain. He shifted uncomfortably on the sofa and Steve stood, hesitating, clearly turning something over in his mind. Finally, he shrugged, and plopped down on the sofa, lifting Danny's legs into his lap. He rested his huge hand atop the cold pack on Danny's knee.

"Kono said your knee should stay bent in a neutral position," he said, with studied nonchalance; but Danny could see the thread of tension in his shoulders as he very carefully watched the football game on the tiny TV screen in front of them.

"Did she, now," Danny said, as he very carefully watched Steve.

Steve nodded, swallowed, and looked at Danny.

"What else did our rookie say?" Danny asked, a slow, soft smile spreading over his face.

"Said not to screw this up," Steve answered softly, as his thumb drew careful circles on the inside of Danny's thigh.

Danny shivered and Steve smirked.

"The ice pack is cold," Danny said.

Steve smirked some more.

"Shut up, I hate you," Danny said, but he was still smiling. And then yawning. The codeine was kicking in.

Steve snagged a ratty blanket off the back of the sofa and tossed it over the both of them. He scooched down a little more into the sofa and let his shoulders relax.

"Sleep, Danny," he said. "I've got you."

Kono smiled as she entered her office the next morning. The roses on her desk were beautiful, absolutely beautiful. But the triple chocolate cupcake in the pink bakery box next to them was even more beautiful. She glanced toward Steve's office, and waved as Steve and Danny saluted her with their coffee cups. She watched as Steve's stupidly perfect cheekbones rounded in a smile at Danny, and Danny bent slightly over Steve's desk with an extra copy of his PT schedule, his stupidly perfect ass right in her line of vision.

Kono thumped her head on her desk and sighed; then shrugged and liberated the chocolate from its adorable little pink box.