"It's a nightmare. It has to be a nightmare.", Becca thought, tears in her eyes, while sitting in the waiting room of Tripler Army Hospital. She could hear the familiar voices of Danny, Kono, Chin and Lou, either talking with each other or at her, but she couldn't discern what they were saying. Her mind was wrapped in a fog, her only thought being if Steve was gonna be okay.

Danny had called her just a few minutes before and when she heard his voice, she knew something bad had happened. At first, he didn't want to tell her much about what had happened, just saying that Steve was being taken to the hospital, just so she wouldn't worry too much, but after some insistence on her part, he ended up telling her everything.

Apparently, Steve had been in the bank and a group of men entered and wanted to rob the place. Steve could tell they were on edge and when a little girl wouldn't stop crying, one of the men flipped and pointed his gun at the child, cocking it and getting ready to shoot her. That's when Steve launched himself between the girl and the gun and ended up getting shot in his lower abdomen.

He was losing a lot of blood and, while the robbers fled, some of the witnesses tried stopping the bleeding until the paramedics arrived. He was then rushed to the hospital and that's when Danny called her. Steve had been in surgery since. They didn't know if he was gonna be okay or not, due to the amount of blood he'd lost, so all they could do was wait, no one leaving until they were sure he was going to be okay.

As soon as Danny had told her that Steve was being taken to the hospital, she immediately grabbed her keys and drove there. It was while she was driving that Danny told her everything, tears treating to cloud her eyes and stopping her to make it there in one piece. She didn't care. She had to see him, she had to know he was going to be okay.

Becca could feel tears starting to escape her eyes. Whipping them from her eyes, she felt Danny sitting down next to her. She looked up and gave him a weak smile, in response to his question of how she was holding up. She knew if she opened her mouth to answer him, she would just start crying and she didn't want that.

It felt like time was passing at a turtle's pace. She started remembering her relationship with Steve. It always amazed her of how much her life had changed since they had met. Before, she would swear that she was done with men, after a bad relationship had scarred her deeply, but now, now she couldn't imagine her life without him. "God, I should've told him I love him.", she thought, tears streaming down her face.

Just a few hours before, they had been talking on the phone and were making plans for Christmas and now she was sitting in a hospital waiting room, hoping and praying Steve would live to see it. She would give anything to trade places with him, to be the one in surgery fighting for her life instead of him.

Suddenly, the doors opened to reveal a doctor still wearing surgical scrubs. He called Steve's name and they all stood and walked over to him.

- "How is he, doc?" – Danny was the first to ask, uncertainty coating his voice.

- "When he came in, his blood pressure was dangerously low and he was having a hard time breathing. Add to that the amount of blood he had already lost on the scene, plus his heart going into tachycardia, and we knew we were gonna be in there for a while." – Becca could feel herself getting sick. – "Now, we gave him a blood transfusion, checked for internal damage and found that the bullet had grazed his liver. After taking care of that, we were about to close him up when he flat lined. We managed to bring him back and close him up without anymore incidents. He's been taken into a private room and as soon as he's all set up, a nurse will come out to get you."

- "How long until he wakes up?" – Becca needed to know when she was gonna be able to see those beautiful blue eyes of his again.

- "Honestly, I don't know. It can be a couple of hours, or a couple of days. As I said, he lost a lot of blood, so the body is going to need time to restock that blood. I placed him in a medical induced coma, so he can recover and we are keeping him under close observation, but, with that said, it's up to him." – The doctor said before leaving them to attend to his other patients.

No one said a word, still trying to wrap their minds around what the doctor had just told them. "It was up to him.". The words kept repeating in Becca's mind. It was up to Steve to come back and wake up. To come back to them, to her. All they could do was wait and that was what was killing her.

She knew Steve was strong but would he be strong enough to come back from this? After all, he had been shot, stabbed, water boarded, fell from a cliff, and those were just some of the injuries he had sustained since he started 5-0. Add to that all the injuries he sustained while still in the Navy as a Seal and only God knows how his body would react this time around.

Thirty minutes later and a nurse called out Steve's name. By then, the only people that were left in the waiting room were Becca and Chin. Chin had stayed behind to keep the team updated on Steve's condition, while everyone else was out trying to catch the sons of bitches who did that to him.

At first, no one wanted to leave, mostly because they didn't want to leave her alone, but, after she assured them that she would be okay on her own, Danny, Kono and Lou left, leaving Chin behind with her. He said it was so the team would know how he was doing after the surgery, but she knew it was so she wouldn't be alone.

The nurse guided them towards Steve's room and, as soon as they reached it, she stopped and turned to them, her hand placed on the doorknob.

- "Now, before we go in, there's something you need to know. He's connected to a number of different machines, with a bunch of wires connected to his body. You need to know that it looks a lot worse than it actually is. Just, keep in mind that all those wires and machines are there to help him heal, okay?" – The nurse told them, a soft smile on her lips.

Both Becca and Chin nodded, a hint of fear hitting Becca in the process. The nurse opened the door and beacon them in, telling them she would come back in a little while to check on him. They nodded and moved further inside the room. Becca's eyes never left the floor, not being ready to see Steve like that, and when she finally looked up, her breath hitched on her throat.

Steve looked so peaceful, laying in that hospital bed. If it wasn't for the machines and wires that attached him to said machines and she could swear he was just sleeping. But they were there, as an awful reminder of what had happened. Tears flooded her eyes once again and she could barely contain them.

They made their way closer to the bed and Becca wrapped her hand around one of his in an attempt to let him know that she was there. Chin was on the other side, looking closely at his friend, his hand placed on his arm, as if telling him he was there too. They didn't say much, just stood there, waiting for something both of them knew wasn't going to happen.

Chin told Becca he was gonna call Danny and tell him how Steve was doing, but Becca had a different idea. She knew Chin wasn't gonna be doing anyone any good if he was to stay with her and she also knew he wanted to catch the guys who had shot Steve as badly as the rest of the team, so she told him to go.

- "Chin, there's no need for you to stay here when you could be out there finding out how did this. Go. I'll be okay and I'll keep you guys updated on any changes, I promise."

- "I can't leave you here alone, Becca. Steve would kill us all, if I did." – Becca chuckled, for the first time since that whole ordeal started.

- "I'll talk to him and I won't let him kill you guys, scouts honor."

- "You sure?"

- "Positive. Go and make sure that whoever did this, pays the price." – And with that, Becca saw Chin nodding and, after squeezing his friend's arm in support, leaving to find the pieces of crap that had done that to him.

Once Chin left, Becca pulled the chair closer to Steve's bed and returned her hand to where it had previously been. She started talking to him, telling him about what the team was up to and that the little girl was okay. She didn't know if he could hear her or not, but she had to try. She was interrupted by the nurse and saw her checking his vitals and writing them down on his chart, before telling her that if she needed anything to let them know. Becca smiled and thanked her, before turning her attention back to Steve.

Over the course of the next few days, Becca became acquainted with the nurses and the doctors on call, to the point she already knew them all by name. She never left his side. Kono would bring her clothes so she could change, taking a quick shower in the room's bathroom, as well as breakfast every morning. At lunch time, Danny would show up with lunch and would get her up to speed on what everyone was doing. Chin and Lou would bring her dinner and stay with her for a few hours before leaving with the promise to visit again the next day.

These were Steve and Becca's standing visitors, those who would show up every day. Then, you had the "strays", as Danny called them. Malia, Chin's wife, would show up and would try to get as much information from the doctors and nurses as she possible could, which was a lot more than they would tell Becca, since Malia was a doctor herself.

Another "stray" would be Melissa and Grace, Danny's girlfriend and daughter. They would come every other day, after Grace was off from school. And every day, the little girl would bring a new drawing with her for "Uncle Steve". It was sweet to see the concern in the little girl's eyes; how careful she would touch his hand or how softly she would speak while telling him about her day at school.

Eventually, it would be just her and Steve alone in the room, after everyone left, going back to their lives. She wasn't sure how much longer she could take before she would start shaking him to see if he would wake up. She needed him to wake up, she needed to tell him how she truly felt about him, she needed to tell him how much she loved him and how much he meant to her.

But then a frightening thought popped in her mind. "What if he never wakes up?".