The Tinman's Heart
I wrote this when I'd only see the previews for the sarin episode, but I think it could fit in, sometime between the scenes when Jenna calls and when Steve rushed off to pick up Grace
Steve stood by his partner's bed, waiting for some sign that the sarin antidote had done its job. The doctors assured him it was working, but he needed to see for himself and he hadn't. Danny still lay unmoving and Steve couldn't bear the stillness any longer.
The only sound came from the dreadful machines — beeping whooshing, and that horrible suction pump that meant his friend still needed a machine to breathe for him.
Danny himself was still, ceaseless voice silent, ever moving hands motionless, keen eyes shut, mobile face slack. How often had Steve wished for that silence? How often had he offered to pay Danny to shut up? And now he couldn't stand it.
"Look at me," he told his unconscious partner in a voice husky with emotion. "Look how you've changed me. I can't stand the quiet any more."
"When did that happen? When did a cranky, Hawaii-hating, New Jerseyan become my best friend? Maybe my first friend, because knowing you makes me wonder if I ever had a real friend before. I was the big kid on the block, the football quarterback, the Navy officer. I had followers; I had teammates; but did I have friends?
"Not like you, that's for sure."
Steve heard a new sound, a moan of pain from the man in the bed. Danny stirred restlessly, then subsided again without opening his eyes.
Steve pulled a chair close to the bed. He put his hand over his friend's. It was the only part of Danny he could touch without fouling the web of wires and tubes. Danny's fingers felt cold, as if halfway to the grave. Well, Steve could do that much for his friend. He sandwiched the icy fingers between his hands.
"My Mom loved the Wizard of Oz," Steve said, his soliloquy swerving the same way he drives the Camaro in a car chase. "She watched it every year and bought it on tape as soon as it came out — in Betamax, no less. She always cried at the end, when the guys said goodbye to Dorothy. Especially when the Tin Woodman said, 'Now I know I have a heart because it's breaking.' As a teenager I thought that was so hokey, but now …" he swallowed. "But now I know exactly how he felt, Danny. When my mother died, my father pushed me away, separated me from my sister. I shut down emotionally and being a Navy SEAL reinforced that. I was cold and if I'd realized it, I would have considered it professionalism and I would have been proud of it.
"And then you came, pointing a gun at me, slugging me in the jaw, challenging my every move and arguing — constantly. You opened me up to the world again. You pushed me — sometimes physically pushed me! — to be more human, more open.
"You're the fire melting my ice, Danny. No one has to guess how you're feeling. Happy, sad, angry — you're right out front with it. You wear your heart on your sleeve.
"Hell, you draw it in the air for God and me and the U.S. Army to see.
"You're the brother I never had, better than the one I made up when I was a kid. Seeing you like this …" Steve sighed. "Now I know I have a heart because it's breaking."
"You're my right arm, Danny. I don't think Five-0 can function without you. I don't think I can either. Grace needs you, Danny. We all need you.
"I know you're fighting, partner. That's a given. That's who you are, but we need you to come back to us now."
Then Steve realized Danny's fingers were moving. They'd twitched a bit before, but this was different. This was a methodical movement. Hardly daring to hope, Steve lifted his upper hand and watched Danny's forefinger move as if writing on Steve's palm. A curve to the right, down to a point, up to a curve that met the first. Repeated one, twice. It was a heart. Danny's was drawing a heart on Steve's hand.
Only then did Steve risk looking up, meeting blue eyes glazed with pain but still Danny's knowing eyes. They crinkled at the corners when Steve finally looked at him.
Steve took a deep breath of relief and squeezed the fingers, now warm with returning life.
"Danny …" Now when Danny was awake, Steve couldn't find words. His heart overflowed and choked his voice. "I've got to tell the others," he finally blurted.
He started for the door, but paused. That sounded too much like the old, cold Steve. What would Danny do if he felt such an upwelling of relief and gratitude and — yes — love? Probably something wild and expressively exuberant. An image came to Steve's mind and he acted on it, but not with the grab he imagined. Instead, out of deference for the tubes and wires and his partner's delicate health, Steve cupped Danny's head in his hands and planted a smacking kiss on his forehead. And then embarrassed but exhilarated, the commander escaped out the door.
Despite the tube down his throat and the pain in every muscle of his body, Danny grinned. Two thoughts took his mind off the discomfort. His efforts to humanize Steve McGarrett might be paying off after all. And he wondered if he could find an old-fashioned oilcan anywhere on this pineapple-infested island where he had so many friends.