Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot, and do not intent to profit from this work of fiction.

Author's Note: I have no idea where this one came from. Danny/whump, Steve/whump, all around H/C and angst.

It is a post-finale, semi-sequel to "Broken Promises." But you don't have to read that one to appreciate this.

Warnings: Some language, some violence, some mature themes. And I know nothing about prisons, so please forgive any mistakes in accuracy.

Chapter 1: Walking with the Wounded


"I think that you like to be the guy that everyone thinks does everything right - but we both know that you made mistakes!"

Words are funny things.

Once leaving the mouth they evaporate into the air, leaving no trace of their existence. But the heart that captures their reverberations is stained forever by the imprints left behind.

Mattie was right.

That's why it hurts so much.

Because Danny couldn't keep his promises and Danny kept making mistakes.

Like not paying attention enough to realize he was being tailed on his way back from visiting Steve in prison.

He couldn't remember where the hit came from. One minute he was wearily stepping out of the Camero and the next his head was bashed into the car door.

He could remember being only half-aware as foreign hands hastily searching his pockets, and then he must have groaned, because whoever it was hit him again.

Bright sparks of color exploded his vision, and he fell abruptly into nothingness.

He awoke to a headache so severe that he could barely open his eyes, and a ringing in his ears so loud that he couldn't hear but bits of sound.

He groaned again, and someone dumped a bucket of what felt like ice-water over his head.

Danny gasped, his head jerking upward as the cold overwhelmed the rest of his senses.

The obnoxious ringing in his ears receded as his hearing returned, and he forced his throbbing eyes to stay open at half-mast.

Two thugs stood on either side of him, one holding a bucket. He could barely make out a third figure before his vision puttered out again, standing in front of him with hands held leisurely behind his back.

"Are you with us now, Detective Williams?"

Danny knew that voice – that smug, blatantly indifferent tone.

"You s-sonofabitch," was all he could choke past trembling lips.

"You will find that it is not wise to insult the one holding all the cards."

"F'r one who's holdin' a-all the cards, you're not very original," Danny muttered painfully, his words slurring badly as he forced them past a tongue that refused to work properly.

"Tied to a chair in th' m-middle of a basem'nt? S'already been done."

"You should save your energy, Detective. You are going to be my guest for awhile."

"What're you gonna do?" Danny demanded.

"Well, that depends on how your partner reacts to the pictures I am going to send him."

A shiver traveled down the blonde man's spine at the words.

"What do you think, Detective? Will it drive him mad to know that he is responsible for your torture?"

"You're gonna go down," Danny retorted, his tone deadly-calm. "I might not be around to see it, but someday you're gonna end up sittin' in a chair behind a glass wall, with an injection needle in your arm."

"Oh, Detective," the voice replied. "Surely you are not so naïve as to believe that."

Something changed suddenly then in the atmosphere of the room, and Danny felt his body tense.

The voice seemed further away this time, but the figures on either side of him shifted even closer.

"Make sure there is a lot of blood," the voice ordered, and somewhere a door clicked shut.

Danny would later find it merciful that he was already on the verge of passing out before the first blow hit his body.


Steve lay stretched out on his bunk, arms linked behind his head, staring intently at the ceiling.

His mind had been churning with even more questions since Danny's visit yesterday.

It was hard not to wallow in the guilt.

He'd acted purely on emotion going after the Governor, whereas if he'd have laid low for a few days, he might have been able to gather enough evidence to clear his name.

Still, it felt damn good to have that confession - to at least hear her side of it.

But at what cost to his team? His friends?

Kono had lost her badge and now faced criminal charges.

Danny had also lost his badge, albeit not formally. HPD treated him like a leper because he was McGarrett's partner.

And he knew Danny was running himself ragged. The stress of the job and not being with his family were already taking a toll. Yesterday the man had looked awfully pale, and his tone had lacked its usual buoyancy.

But Steve also firmly believed that, come hell or high-water, if anyone could get him out of this mess, it was Detective Danny Williams.

Chin was another story.

Steve had been baffled to learn that Chin had been promoted to lieutenant in the HPD, but had enough faith in the man to know that he'd accepted the offer for a reason, that he would never betray his former partner's son.

But what motive was there in giving Chin back his badge?

What bothered him was the timing. It was all at once – all too convenient, and even though it was merely a hunch, Steve secretly wondered if the Chief of Police might be dirty as well.

If that was true, it would make it ten times more difficult - and more dangerous - to clear him and Kono.

It was driving him crazy, being so useless in here and not knowing what was going on.

Luckily he'd earned himself a private room after his former roommate jumped him – it seemed word got around fast that the former leader of 5.0 was in prison. He'd held his own in the fight but the burly man had still gotten a jab at his eye before they were pulled apart by the guards.

"Hey, McGarrett. You got mail." A guard stood at the door with a yellow envelope in his hand, interrupting Steve's thoughts.

The former SEAL frowned as he accepted the familiar-looking envelope that slid through the metal bars.

He hadn't been expecting mail.

His heart began to race with adrenaline when noticed that the envelope had no address, just his name scrawled in chicken scratch across the front.

Just like the envelopes he received every Wednesday, only without Laura Hills' cursive handwriting.

Steve waited until the guard walked away before ripping the envelope open and pulling out its contents.

At first it didn't register what he was looking at; then he realized the crisp photos were upside down.

As he turned them in his hand, his eyes narrowed in confusion.

Once it registered what he was seeing, it felt like somebody dropped an anvil in Steve's stomach. His breath caught in his throat, his stomach rolling with nausea.

The pictures showed Danny slumped limply in a chair, hands bound behind his back, head hanging against his chest. His work-shirt was ripped and smeared liberally with blood that dripped copiously from his head and face. The red mingled with his blonde hair, making it look dirty.

Steve shut his eyes, clamping down on the rage that boiled quickly within him.

He knew the photos were real. He also knew they were sent by Wo Fat.

But he'd be damned if he was going to walk into another trap. There was too much at stake this time.

When he opened his eyes again, Steve's features were stony, the familiar emotional mask he'd learned to utilize in the SEALS firmly in place.

He stuffed the photos back inside the envelope and walked over to his sink. There, next to the where the back of the sink attached to the wall, was the loose brick Steve had found his first night at Halawa Correctional.

He'd gone over every inch of the cell, looking for possible exploitations, but almost missed the loose brick which had obviously been used by former inmates to hide prison contraband.

Steve used it now to hide the photos of his badly beaten partner.

Then he stood and walked over to the cell door and, leaning his arms on either side of it, shouted through the bars for a guard.

It took him a few minutes to get some attention, but eventually a pot-bellied corrections officers walked over to him.

"What are you hollering about, McGarrett?" the man growled, clearly irritated by the yelling.

"I need to make a phone call," Steve spoke calmly, an underlying urgency in his tone.

"You know you have to wait for your designated time," the guard passively replied. "You don't get special treatment just because you're name's McGarrett."

"I don't want special treatment – I just want to make a phone call. It's an emergency."

"You'll wait your turn like everybody else," the guard said, turning away.

"Please – please, it's a matter of life and death," Steve insisted desperately, but to no avail.

"Damn it!" He yelled out in frustration, running his hand through his hair and kicking the cell door.

Turning, he paused, a half-thought forming in his brain.

Mustering up all the rage he'd kept bottled up inside for years, Steve began tearing the contents of his cell apart.


Danny awoke a second time to find himself lying on his back, hands bound in front of him.

He felt something soft underneath his head, and that was enough of a surprise for him to risk opening his eyes.

They slid open to slits, but he couldn't get his vision to focus. He shifted slightly, then winced as a bolt of agony shot through his brain.

"I wouldn't move if I were you, bruddah. 'Dat head of yours looks like it was used as a punching bag."

The thick, familiar Hawaiian voice was laced with remorse, and Danny frowned in confusion.

He opened his mouth to speak, licking lips caked with dried blood.

"Kam...?"

"'De one and only, brah."

"How?"

"Don't you worry about 'dat now. I'm gonna get you outta 'dis."

Danny's world tilted suddenly, and the vertigo caused him to gag.

Then he moved his head the wrong way and everything faded to a white noise.


Chin worried his lip as he walked into the psychiatric ward of the Halawa Correctional Facility.

He'd received a call a few hours ago that Steve McGarrett had been put on suicide watch, and being as they could not reach his listed next-of-kin Danny Williams, they'd called him.

Chin hadn't spoken to Danny since the night Steve was arrested.

He'd been deeply wounded by the thought that Danny believed he was capable of betraying Five-0.

Of course, he hadn't had time to explain what he was doing or why, but had thought the rest of the team would understand that he was acting in good faith.

Obviously, he'd been mistaken.

Hell, he didn't know that he'd be arresting Steve that night – how could he have?

"What did you do, huh? What did you do? You just went back to them after everything they did to you? Huh?"

Danny's spiteful, accusatory glare had cut Chin to the quick. The blonde man had been understandably incensed by Steve's impromptu arrest and was spoiling for a fight.

Still, it had taken all of Chin's willpower to keep himself from vaulting over the patrol car and jacking the man in the face.

How dare he think Chin would ever betray his Ohana?

After everything they'd been through - how dare he?

So Chin kept his distance, running his own personal investigation into the Governor's murder and keeping close tabs on all of HPD's dealings.

He kept in contact with Kono, who was on house arrest pending her trial. And he assumed Agent Kaye was working with Danny, but that was it.

Now he regretted not speaking to the former Jersey detective - the fact that Halawa couldn't get a hold of the man probably meant something bad had happened to him.

The fact that Steve was on suicide watch in the psychiatric ward meant he probably knew about it.

It took Chin a few seconds to realize the nurse leading him toward Steve's room was talking to him.

"Now we check on our patients every 15 minutes, so he's just about due. And visitors are only allowed 10 minutes."

She knocked on the slightly opened door before entering.

"Mr. McGarrett? You have a visitor."

She turned back to Chin. "He's a lot calmer now than he was. We gave him an anti-depressant."

Chin's eyes widened at that, and he stepped past her into the room.

Steve was lying in a hospital bed on his back, apparently sleeping. His face was covered with minor cuts and bruises, and his left hand was wrapped to the wrist in a bandage.

"Steve?" Chin called softly, stepping toward the bed.

Dark blue eyes fluttered open slowly before blinking owlishly at the lieutenant.

"Chin?" His voice was hoarse.

"Yeah. Hey, you're looking a little worse for the wear, brah."

"S'okay. Had…to get a hold of you," Steve replied slowly.

He was obviously heavily medicated, and seemed to have to concentrate very hard just to get the words out. "Wouldn't…lemme use the…phone."

"Okay. Well I'm here now. Wanna tell me what happened?"

"S'Danny. S'in trouble. Wo Fat."

Chin's eyes widened marginally.

"How do you know?"

Steve frowned, shaking his head slowly. "Got pictures…guard gave 'em to me."

Chin tensed. "Which guard? Do you know his name?"

Steve's eyes squinted shut and pulled a heavy hand up to cover them.

"No, I don't. S'rry. Room's spinnin'…wish they didn't drug me." There was an unusually disconcerted, almost anxious tone in Steve's voice, and Chin reached out to squeeze the younger man's arm.

"Easy, brah. We'll find Danny. Just take it slow."

Steve exhaled loudly, then removed his hand, his eyes remaining closed.

"Can't think on this shit."

Chin's eyebrows furrowed in concern. "You shouldn't have taken it this far, brah. That medicine could really mess with your head if you don't actually have a mental disorder."

"I know. Had to do it…S'was the only way to reach you."

"How'd you get all banged up?"

Steve's eyes drifted open and he shrugged, looking sheepish despite his drugged state.

"I made a mess…fought with the guards."

"Suicide watch?" The older man's voice held a bit of uncertainty.

Steve mustered up a glare. "Broke a mirror...was a strategic move, Chin. S'all."

Chin nodded, not sure if he was satisfied or if he just didn't want to know.

"You said there were pictures."

"Hid 'em. Can't trust…." He trailed off, a clumsy hand waving vaguely.

"Do you remember anything significant about the photos - anything about where Danny might be?"

Steve swallowed, eyes fluttering closed again. "Hard…to tell. Looked like…cement structure…basement, maybe? Know it's not much. Didn't give 'way a lot."

Chin nodded. "Okay. I'll run over to his house and see if I can find anything. You gotta watch your back though, brah. I think Wo Fat has a mole in the HPD."

"Chief," Steve whispered, his mind drifting.

Chin's eyes widened.

"The Chief of Police? You think he's dirty?"

"Maybe. No proof. Be careful."

"You too."

Chin gave Steve's shoulder another pat, then rose to leave, but was stopped when Steve reached out to grasp his wrist in weak grip.

He glanced back and saw Steve staring at him through half-lidded eyes.

"Find him, Chin." The man's voice was desperate – broken.

Chin gently placed Steve's hand back on the bed.

"I will, brah – I promise."


TBC...

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