A/N: First of all I have to thank my awesome buddy Narkito, who nudged me to write this and beta-ed it for me. As always you're awesome!
The checkup with the doctor hadn't gone exactly as planned. Danny didn't get most of what the doctor said, but the words 'ulcer', 'high blood pressure' and 'a battery of tests' made him jump straight to the worst case scenario, as he usually did.
He didn't want to admit it, but the idea that something was wrong with him made him think about life, about his mortality, and about the idea of not being able to work as a detective anymore. If he couldn't work, he'd have to retire, and what would he do then? He wasn't very good at anything else, so he wasn't sure what would become of him if he ever had to leave Five-0.
That's what brought up The List. He was sure that something would happen; that things had gone well for far too long, so he had to be prepared in case he couldn't be a detective anymore.
They had a slow week at work, so much that Duke had convinced him and Steve to give a lecture at the Police Academy the next day. He had almost forgotten about The List by lunchtime, but then he noticed Steve coming out of his office, and what was worse, he had aneurism face.
He hadn't said anything about the tests, or about the ulcer or the number of things that could be wrong with him, because he wouldn't know until he had the results of said tests, and now Steve was giving him the SEAL Stare, but Danny wasn't ready to talk, because he had no idea what the fuck was going on.
So Danny stalled, and avoided Steve, and eventually, it was time to be at the Academy.
Danny knew that Steve knew, and Danny also knew that Steve knew that Danny knew that Steve knew. And it was driving Danny crazy! So while it wasn't the best time or place to bring it up, Danny needed to say something. He argued about trust and privacy, all the while dreading that Steve would know that something was up, that he would call his bluff and Danny would have to tell him that something may be wrong, and that it may have to do with The Liver.
The drive back from the Academy wasn't much better, but at least he got Steve focused on the snooping rather than on the reasons for writing the list in the first place.
The whole plan to check the terrorists' camp had been a disaster from the beginning. From the jump from a plane, to the trek through the jungle, to finally telling Steve that he may retire at some point, omitting the part where he may not get a choice about it, really. And of course, it had to include lots of guns, and the cherry on top, an actual nuclear bomb, ready to explode in 59 minutes and 59 seconds.
By that time Danny was barely holding it together. If the bomb went off, it would tear half of the island apart, and the rest would still be exposed to the radiation. He had no cell service, the sat phone had been shot to death and he had no way to warn Rachel, to tell her to get the fuck off the island, NOW, and to get the kids to a safe place, as far away as she could get them. Meanwhile Steve was making these fucking Grand Gestures, saying I love you, almost as if he was saying goodbye, and Danny couldn't do this right now.
Danny had loved Billy Selway, he'd told him he loved him in his own awkward way, and he'd lost him in the blink of an eye.
He'd also loved Grace Tillwell. He'd wanted to pretend that they were just friends, but when that son of a bitch put a bullet through her heart, Danny had lost a piece of his own as well.
Danny had loved Meka, he had been the only person to treat him like a professional when he started in HPD, and he welcomed him as a friend when he was all alone in the island. He still had nightmares about his awful death, and how he couldn't do anything to stop it.
Danny had loved Matt, and he'd told him so every chance he got. All that love was worth shit when his little brother was cut into pieces and shoved into a metal drum.
Now faced with the very real possibility of getting blown up into dust with his partner, Danny couldn't bring himself to say the words. He had lost far too many people he'd loved, and telling Steve those words right now would mean a goodbye. He wasn't ready for that, so no, there was no way he was saying those words right then.
The explosion attracted a whole bunch of people to their location. First it was Chin, Lou and Kono, and then the paramedics and a bomb squad. Danny noticed that someone took the Uranium and apparently gave the go for the paramedics to do something other than looking at them from afar. Danny's ears were still ringing and his head was pounding, both from the blast and from being inside an old truck while it flipped, so he wasn't exactly surprised to find himself being moved to a backboard by the paramedics one second, and the next opening his eyes to a hospital room, get well cards and balloons included. Fortunately by then his ears had been working as they should.
He looked around the room and was met with the familiar sight of his partner lying on a bed across the room. At least Steve was awake, and didn't look too worse for wear. "Hey, what happened? Are you ok?" Danny asked in a voice full of gravel.
Steve looked at his partner with an expression Danny couldn't read. "I'm good, we just got a concussion from the blast and they want to keep us overnight. There's no trace of radiation on us, so that's one less thing to worry about."
Danny nodded as he pressed the button to bring the back of his bed a little bit higher. "That's good," Danny said as he reached for a plastic cup with water on the side table. He took a couple of small sips and put the cup down, turning to look at his partner. "Alright, if we're both good, then what's with the face?"
Steve turned to look at Danny, strange look firmly in place. "You doctor stopped by. He said that the tests show no sign of an ulcer, and that your BP was in a normal range, so he wouldn't prescribe any meds for now," he said in a monotone.
Danny tensed, sitting up straighter. "Why the hell did my doctor give you all that personal information, huh? I thought we'd gone over this already!" Danny said, growing angry.
Steve rolled his eyes. "I'm your medical proxy. When you're out, I get to make decisions about your health, and get to know the results of tests and stuff the doctors think are important. I guess I just assumed you'd tell me about important stuff before I had to hear about it from a doctor," he continued in the same monotone.
Danny ran a hand nervously through his hair. "Ok, I'm sorry. I didn't say anything because I didn't want to start worrying about something like this until I was sure there was something to worry about," he said in a placating tone.
"You made the list because you thought you may have to retire, which means that you were already worrying about it," Steve stated in the same monotone.
Danny sighed, deflating a bit. "Well, maybe. But that doesn't mean that you had to worry about it before it was an actual thing," he said with a shrug.
Steve sighed, deflating as well. "Whatever happened to that whole 'we are friends, and your problems become my problems' deal?"
"Well, that mostly works when other people are the ones with the problem." Danny said sheepishly, finding the pattern on his blanket terribly interesting.
Steve rolled his eyes. "Ok, fair enough. But can I ask you for one thing?"
Danny lifted his eyes to look at his partner. "What?" He asked, unsure.
"Next time I start badgering you, can you at least fess up? It's exhausting to try to pry the truth out of you as if it was a wisdom tooth!" Steve pleaded, looking at his partner with a tired smile.
It was Danny's turn to roll his eyes. "I'll think about it."
Steve chuckled, reaching for the remote. "Alright, what do you wanna watch? A movie? A game?" He asked as he turned on the TV.
Danny settled more comfortably in his bed. "I dunno, whatever you want…" He said with a shrug.
Steve surfed through the channels until he found what he was looking for, a cooking show. "Here, maybe you'll get some ideas for when you start with your restaurant," he said with a smile.
Danny snorted, shaking his head in amusement. "You're an asshole."
Steve laughed as well. "Yup, but you love me anyways," he said, growing serious. "It's alright if you don't say it, buddy. I know how it is," he said gently, before focusing on the show.
Danny was silent for a couple of minutes, before he shifted and got more comfortable in his bed. "Yeah, I love you, buddy," he said quietly, with a small smile on his face.
It took Danny two more minutes to realize that they were cooking crickets, scorpions and spiders on the show. "You know what? Forget I said anything, I hate you so much."
The end
A/N: I needed to explain to myself Danny's behavior. He was a bit of an ass through the ep, and I didn't like how he was portrayed, without any reason for his crappy behavior, so I came up with an explanation.