Summary: Danny should've known better than to go on yet another hike with his partner…only this time, there's more than just a dead body to worry about. And way more than a broken arm.

Acknowledgment: Based on simple sentence uttered by my publisher, which was: "Danny and Steve stuck in the jungle with a baby, but with Danny unable to take care of it." My mind conjured up this little tale as a result.

BABY MAKES THREE

Steve had urged him to go on yet another hike, this time promising he wouldn't fall over a cliff. They weren't even going to the same place, nowhere near the petroglyphs that Danny were sure said something like, "This is where Steve almost died" at this point.

So against his better judgment, Danny acquiesced. Because if he didn't, Steve would look at him like a kid who's just been denied his favorite toy for no good reason at all, and Danny hated it when Steve's puppy dog eyes rivaled that of Danny's eleven-year old daughter.

"It's Kaliuwa'a Falls, Danny. My…my mom used to like going there. She'd hike us kids back whether Dad came or not, sometimes with a couple of her friends." Steve smiled ruefully. "Most of the time I was the only male in the group."

"Tell me the cougars didn't fall all over you when you were a teenager like every woman alive does now," Danny zinged at him.

Steve cocked his head. "You have an overactive imagination." But then he rubbed the back of his neck, looked away, even bit his lower lip.

"Oh, all right. Against my better judgment, because apparently I've turned into a shadow of you, I will go with you to this…what'd you call it?"

"Kaliuwa'a Falls. It's eleven hundred feet total, but the last eighty-foot drop leads to a nice pool. I don't think too many people know how to get there anymore."

"But you know."

"Of course."

"And does it involve swinging from jungle vines or crossing white-water rapids or parachuting in from twenty thousand feet?"

Steve burst out laughing. "None of the above. Just wear shorts or something like that, though, because it's really humid under the canopy."

Danny sighed and shook his head. "I prefer a canopy of stars, where you won't have huge bugs dropping on you or wild boar pounding after you."

"Duly noted," Steve said very seriously with a nod. "Will you be ready to go by ten?"

"Ten? Tonight or tomorrow morning? What happened to six? What happened to waking up too damn early on weekends?"

Steve raised an eyebrow. "Do you want me to pick you up at six tomorrow morning?"

"No," Danny scowled.

"Then why the hell are you complaining about ten?" Steve asked, somehow managing to sound both exasperated and fond.

"Someone has to push back on you, Steven, because if they don't, you think you can just run ramshod all over their lives and carry them around in your pocket like your newest and most favorite grenade."

Steve crossed his arms over his chest, standing in between the Camaro and his truck in the Iolani Palace's parking lot. "Did you just equate yourself to my favorite grenade? Does that mean you want a special spot in my cargo pants?"

Danny set his jaw and made to stomp from the driver's side of his car over to where Steve was, to hit him or maybe just curse at him, but Steve just laughed, jumped in his truck and started the engine as he rolled the window down. "You are too easy!" he crowed.

"I take it back!" Danny yelled as Steve backed out of his spot. "I am not going with you tomorrow!"

"Of course you, are, Danno," Steve replied smugly, then needlessly burned rubber out of the parking lot.

Danny watched him go, fuming for all of maybe ten seconds until Steve pulled out into traffic, and then shaking his head and chuckling.

Yeah, at first Danny's ranting and railing against anything Steve-related had been his anger over his general life and Steve's strange way of existing. But now, it was just something he kept doing; a good way to blow off steam even though after three years he'd realized Steve wasn't actually insane…just an overgrown Boy Scout with an adrenaline and leaping-tall-shipping-containers addiction, a BAMF Navy SEAL mentality and a penchant for thigh holsters and all things explosive.

Danny sighed and rubbed a hand on his forehead as he made for the driver's side of his car. "That man will be the death of me one day, I'm sure of it."

Aside from his usual bitching about being in a jungle-like forest of any kind, which Steve alternately grinned and frowned at, Danny wasn't really having that bad a time, Steve thought. He was keeping up easily, seemed to be in a good mood overall, and was actually taking some interest in this or that thing Steve pointed out to him along the way.

They'd moved from the more touristy parts of this particular park, where easily identifiable dirt pathways and wooden staircases make it clear and easy going, into an area where less people go because most didn't know there was anything but canopy beyond where the dirt trail ends.

But Steve did know, and hadn't been to see this spot since the last time he'd come with his sister, his mother and her friends four months before his mom had left them the first time. Steve clamped down hard on that thought, refusing to think any further about his mother, Joe White or what had happened in the year since he'd discovered she wasn't dead after all.

Instead, he focused on the day ahead and admitted to himself that he was really gung-ho for Danny to see this particular spot, because he knew not even Danny's admittedly decreasing Jersey snark could possibly have a bad thing to say about the falls.

So he was cheerful, feeling good over being outdoors and getting all this exercise, and just plain happy to spend some time with his best friend. Time that didn't involve Kevlar vests, gunfire or high-speed car chases. "Just a few more minutes," he said with a grin. "Then you'll see something spectacular."

Danny hmmm'd and continued to follow even when they crossed a tricky part of a stream that stood between them and the sheer magnificence of Hawaii. At last the sound of Kaliuwa'a Falls could be heard and Danny's eyes widened. Steve grinned.

"Is that what I think it is?"

"Most likely," Steve nodded as they pushed their way through the undergrowth.

"No near-drownings, please," Danny said. "And no cliff-diving."

"Aw, Danny, you're no fun."

"No. I am not. I am a killjoy and make no apologies for it," Danny replied, but Steve could hear the grin in his voice. "I prefer that each and every limb remain attached in the manner it's meant to be, and am adverse to head injuries, drowning and broken bones, not necessarily in that order."

Steve stopped, turned round, looked at Danny and chuckled.

"What's with the laugh, McGarrett?" Danny asked as he ducked, weaved and followed Steve's every step when the taller man turned and kept going. "Do I amuse you? Is that why you wanted me as your partner, because I tickle your funny bone?"

"You're a funny guy, Danno. It's a thing. Go with it."

"A thing, he says. You do realize that at this point in our partnership we have more 'things' going on between us than your average pair of friends, right?"

"Makes it exciting, Danny," Steve replied, thwacking at a huge leaf and holding it out of the way as he gestured for Danny to go on ahead. "This way we'll never get bored with each other."

"I don't know about you," Danny stated while Steve took the lead again, "but I'd be perfectly happy to be bored around you at least four out of seven days a week. See, I don't ask for much, only what's reasonable in an attempt to ensure my longevity. This penchant you have for freefalling, speed racing and getting us shot at is disturbing and my blood pressure has its own opinion on the matter."

"Us? You said us."

"What?"

"You said us! Getting us shot at!" Steve exclaimed, turning around and pointing at Danny, which effectively stopped them both in their tracks. Danny grabbed his finger, scowling mightily. "You said 'us' instead of 'getting me shot at' like you usually do!" Steve yanked his finger out of Danny's grasp, held both hands over his heart and swooned dramatically. "Oh, I think I'm in love!"

"Shut up, you," Danny growled, manhandling his partner to turn him around, giving him a hard push in the back to resume walking, even as Steve started to laugh. And Steve could hear the laughter hiding behind Danny's grumbling as they continued on their way.

Suddenly Steve pushed through a final wall of undergrowth and onto a one-foot slope of land at the edge of a good-sized natural pool fed by the falls, that in turn fed the stream they'd crossed earlier. He stopped so quickly that Danny ran right into his back, yelped, and scrambled sideways even as Steve very nearly lost his balance.

"Warn a guy, would you?" Danny yelled, hands flailing. "Christ, you are trying to kill me!"

Steve raised a finger in the air to point out "I think I'm the one who almost tumbled into the water, partner, so in essence, I'm either trying to kill myself, or you're trying to kill me. Besides, I might've hit my head, but that's all. This water's barely a foot deep near the edge. It's only in the center that it's deep enough to submerge."

Danny opened his mouth to reply, but the eighty-foot top of the first level of Kaliuwa'a Falls caught his eye and he glanced sharply up at it from their spot on the opposite bank. "Holy shit!" Danny cried, and without another word ran into the pool, tripping over rocks, jungle detritus and his own feet before plunging into the deeper part near the center.

"Danny, what—?" But then Steve looked up, too, and what he saw shocked the hell out of him. There, standing half in the falls where they tipped over the edge of the cliff and half on the narrow shelf of rock next to it was a man who'd just dropped something over the side. Something that was shaped like a baby carrier, and that was emitting a wailing sound. That sound could only mean one thing. "Son of a bitch!" Steve yelled, dropping his backpack to the ground and getting his weapon out. He looked back up, saw the man staring down at him, pointed his weapon and yelled as loudly as he could, "Five-0! Stay right there!"

Which, of course, the man didn't. Steve heard a thunk, then a plop, then a litany of curses, and ran into the pool after his partner, diving through the deeper part and coming up quickly as it grew rocky and shallow again near where the falls dropped in. Danny was now sitting on his ass in about half a foot of water, rocking a bit and moaning in pain. It wasn't until Steve was towering over him that he discovered what Danny's torso had kept hidden from view.

It was a baby carrier. And inside that baby carrier was a tiny baby dressed all in pale blue. Steve didn't know a whole shitload about babies, but this one looked small…as small as Rachel's baby had been when Steve had seen him through the nursery window.

"Ohmagod, Danny, are you—?"

"Fine," Danny gritted out between clenched teeth. "Go get that motherfucker." He looked up at Steve, eyes flashing with anger. "Nobody does that to a baby."

Steve nodded once, looked in a three-sixty around them, and decided his best bet was to return to the trail and veer off into the overgrowth, climbing parallel to the eighty-foot drop until he reached its zenith. He hoped that since his quarry had actually been standing in the falls, that he'd have a hard time getting out of the deep gully they flowed through. This would allow Steve to catch up to him and maybe drop him over the edge.

Hey, when the life of a child was involved, Steve knew damn well that even Danny wouldn't give him shit if he did.

Steve's mind raced as he ran, shoving his way through plants and trees. He simply couldn't believe what he'd seen. Why would anyone drop a child over a fucking waterfall?

That child owed his or her life to Danny. Danny, who had – somehow – actually caught the kid, carrier and all.

Danny's left hand skimmed over the infant strapped into the car seat, touching first around his skull, then along his neck, shoulders, arms, chest and stomach. From the color of the baby's onesie, he guessed it might be a boy, but you never knew these days, what with the equality of genders always in play. The baby seemed totally fine, wasn't crying and even cooed a little at him when Danny stroked his cheek.

"What the hell," Danny breathed, then gasped as a jolt of pain went through his right side. He looked down and saw the water around where he was sitting starting to turn red. "Shit." He moved just a little and the jab of pain seared through him again, taking his breath away. He had to get this baby out of the water, though, because mist from the falls was wetting them both, and no infant this young could keep its body heat up with that coolness soaking them. "Hang on a sec, little guy, and I apologize in advance for my language," Danny said.

He squeezed his eyes closed, gathered up his reserve of courage and all his strength, and sprang to his feet. The resulting roar of pain he let loose was followed by words he didn't think he'd spoken since the last time he was shot. He swayed unsteadily, but the thought of the infant made him force himself to open his eyes and take enough deep breaths to keep his vision from whiting out.

Holy fuck, did it hurt. Just…holy fuck.

He wasn't sure what exactly had happened. One minute he'd seen a man at the top of the falls holding a baby carrier out over the small pond, and the next minute he'd seen the carrier falling and rushed to get beneath it. He'd caught it, the momentum knocking him on his ass. At that same moment he'd felt something on his right side like a knife through the arm and ribs. And right now he couldn't twist his body well enough to see what had happened to either spot on him, especially with his arm hanging limply at his side and refusing to move.

So Danny, with his two perfectly good legs and his one good arm, picked up the baby carrier by its handle, grimaced at the pain that movement caused, and made his way very slowly to a large cluster of moss-covered rocks on the opposite bank from where he and Steve had come in. That ten-foot walk exhausted him, and he knew from the slight wooziness he was feeling that he was losing some blood, albeit slowly enough that it wasn't turning the entire pool red.

He slipped a couple of times on the rocks as he made his way on-shore, crying out both times but managing not to either drop the baby carrier or slam it down onto the rocks and jar the baby within. Eventually he reached a dryer area where low grass and smaller plants marked re-entry to the forest proper. Hardly able to breathe past the constant ache in his right side, Danny set the carrier down a foot back from the last of the rocks and collapsed to his knees.

The movement jarred his whole body and he whimpered, tears leaking out the corners of his eyes. Goddammit, he wished he could figure out what precisely had happened to his side and arm. That he couldn't move the arm was enough to scare even him, because what the hell would paralyze his arm? And his side must have been what was leaking blood…confirmed when Danny managed to flatten the palm of his left hand at the front edge of his right side and pulled it away to find it covered in blood.

He wiped the blood off on his shorts as best he could, then noticed the infant was watching him with wide eyes. "Hey," Danny whispered, unable to muster enough oomph to speak louder. "You okay there, buddy?"

The baby squirmed, one tiny fist reaching up into the air. Danny didn't want to touch the boy with a hand covered in blood, so he just shook his head. "Not…right now…okay?" he panted, feeling his resolve to stay up on his knees start to wane. "I just…I gotta…"

And then a veil of darkness descended over his eyes. Danny was unconscious before his head hit the jungle floor.