Hello everyone! For those who don't know me yet, this is my third fanfiction for Hawaii 5-0. This is going to be a double OR a triple-chapter story (depends on YOU and your reviews of course).

When I saw the 100th episode (season 5 episode 7), I was wondering what had happened between the rescue moment and the next episode; we all saw Steve being vulnerable as he never was before, sobbing when the whole team was there for him after he had killed Wo Fat. But the next episode, it was like nothing had ever happened. That was weird, wasn't it?

So, I tried to figure out (I did my best, okay?) what had happened between these two moments, adding as many details as I could for the moment they found Steve lying flat and still on the ground. This is my guess, okay? So if it doesn't fit what you had in mind, I am sorry; this is what I think ^^

Please, leave me some reviews, maybe I'll be inspired for a third chapter (the second chapter is already written but I still can change some details here and there), or just tell me what you think about this first chapter!

Enjoy!

They all heard it. A loud noise from a room down the hall, resonating and tearing the air. Was that a shot fired? Everyone looked at each other for a moment, worried. They had to continue. Without a word, everyone wondered what it meant. If it was really a shot fired, it could mean two things: either Wo Fat had just shot Steve, or Steve had just shot Wo Fat after releasing himself. At the end of the corridor, the four members of the 5-0 Task Force gathered; Lou Grover behind the door and ready to open with a simple gesture from Detective Danny Williams, the latter standing on the other side of the door, ready to enter when the door would burst open. Just behind him stood Chin Ho Kelly, his heavy weapon at stake, ready to shoot at the slightest suspicious movement. And behind Chin, Officer Kono Kalakaua, also ready to shoot at the slightest opportunity. They all stared at each other once again for a second, before Danny nodded. The signal. Lou took the handle and turned it on, opening the door. Danny raised his gun, looking to the left. Nothing. To the right. Nothing. All clear. He looked straight, holding his breath; two men and one woman down. The woman in black had been shot several times and appeared dead. One man looked like Wo Fat, the other just like Steve. It was Steve actually. Bare chest, all wet. A gun hanging on his right hand and his head turned to the left. He couldn't see any chest movement from where he was. Was Steve dead? He looked down; Wo Fat. With a satisfying gunshot wound to the head, his eyes glassy and motionless. Dead. Finally.

"Steve?"

One word and this one was barely whispered, broken. Danny swallowed hard; Steve didn't even move. He didn't flinch. The Jersey native didn't wait for his companions. He rushed to his best friend, dropping his gun. Once near him, he crouched, repeating his name.

"Steve?"

And finally, after having placed his left hand on his right shoulder, he stirred, opening his eyes wide, a slight spasm travelling through his body. Maybe it was fear, surprise, or something else, but at least there was a reaction.

"You alright?"

Motionless and inert for a moment, Steve thought about everything that had happened. His abduction, the insulating chamber, the chair on which he was attached and had just been tortured for an information he didn't have. Wo Fat. The fight. The gunshots. Steve jerked, straightening almost instantly, surprised and growling. It was a mixture of surprise and military reflexes, Danny could guess.

"You're alright", he repeated in a whisper to his friend in order to calm him down. "You're alright, come on."

Chin, who was behind him as they all entered the room, knelt as well but on the other side of Steve in order to help Danny place the back of their friend on the wooden shelf located behind him.

"You're alright, huh? You're alright?" the detective asked again softly.

Steve's gaze was unfocused, scanning the room, looking everywhere but them. To the right, to the left. His head was throbbing terribly, each of his heartbeat knocking like a hammer on his skull. His body was aching from everywhere, slightly trembling when a thin layer of dirt, sweat and water was covering him entirely. The question from Danny echoed inside his head, ricocheting.

"Yeah", was his only answer, but it was too weak to be heard.

It was a gigantic effort from him as blood dripped from his face and mouth; a deep laceration oozing on his left temple, bleeding profusely and he had another smaller laceration on the left eyebrow. He swallowed, attempting to utter another sentence, louder.

"Yeah, where's my father?"

Danny looked at Chin, worried. His father? Why was he asking for his father? Kono also understood that something was wrong with Steve. She knelt down too while Lou was checking that Wo Fat was indeed dead.

"I wanna see my dad… I wanna see my dad…"

A defiantly fading whisper while he was looking at his friend discreetly from the corner of his right eye. Steve looked around him, over Danny's shoulder in order to have a look at his father. In vain. He wasn't there. What the Hell was going on?

"Alright…"

Danny looked back at Steve, visibly lost and vulnerable. He had never seen him in such a state. He sighed heavily, looking down as ashamed of what he was about to say.

"Buddy, your dad died four years ago, okay?"

The detective rubbed his neck slowly as if he wanted to show him his full support and to protect him, still looking him straight in the eyes. Steve seemed so lost. What did they do to him to push him far like this? Nobody dared to talk, the heavy silence only interrupted by Steve's deep breaths. His head hurt him even more when he moved his head or tried to look up into the light, making him dizzy and nauseous.

"You alright?"

The same question, over and over again. It took time, but finally, Steve nodded slightly and weakly, even if he knew that it wasn't alright at all. Everything hurt, everything was a new torture to him. All this world he had created when they drugged him, in order to protect himself while being tortured was fading. A world in which he was still a NavySEAL, his father was still alive, Danny had moved in Hawaii to enjoy the sun, the beach with his wife Rachel and his daughter Grace, looking Hawaiian while he was a Haole. But Danny could only see within a second this thick shield of McGarrett crackling and exploding, revealing a more than vulnerable side of him he didn't know. He wasn't the same Steve; he wasn't strong, arrogant, self-confident or infallible. No. In front of him, Steve was weak, vulnerable, and… Sinking. He was sobbing, crying silently. Tears were not running down his cheeks, but he was sobbing heavily. Was it pain? Was the adrenaline finally flushing out of his system? Or the relief of having killed his untouchable enemy? Or was it a mixture of everything?

"You're alright, you're alright", Danny repeated, this time to reassure his broken friend.

Powerless, the two cousins looked at each other, wondering what could have happened in this room. Danny was moving his hand along Steve's neck, uttering sweet words to soothe him, to appease his sobs, to show him that he was there for him. For his best friend. His brother in arms. He sighed deeply, closing his eyes for a moment. He still couldn't believe what he was hearing and seeing.

"Let's go...", he whispered, trying to get up alone, in vain.

Steve wanted to get out, to go away from this Hell. Understandable.

"You alright?" Danny asked one last time, seeing that his partner was trying to raise. "Come on, let's go."

He started helping Steve to get on his bare feet, but he couldn't do it alone. Steve was too weak to bear his own weight, so the detective couldn't maintain their balance, he couldn't keep him properly upright, even after having put his right arm around his neck to support his weight. Chin came to the rescue, taking Stev's left arm to put him around his own neck. Now, they could get out of here without any problem. Kono had got up too, walking toward the door and waiting for her four colleagues. Barely passing Wo Fat's lifeless body, Lou patted Steve's left shoulder, also claiming his full support for his boss.

"Wait, wait..."

Everybody froze, and Steve made a giant effort to stand up straight in front of the Wo Fat's dead body. It was all over now. He knew the whole truth. Doris, his mother, had raised him after a failed undercover CIA operation, and thus before he and Mary were born and before she knew her future husband. And when hearing this, the Company had asked her to abandon that child, a sacrifice she apparently had hardly made. Steve was even wondering if all this had had an incidence on the fact that her mother retired as a spy in order to live a calmer life. Danny and Chin were sharing a look, wondering what was going on in the head of their boss and friend.

"Let's go...", he said once again in a whisper.

"Come on, man", Danny encouraged him.

Out of the room. Steve was limping, supported by two of his best friends, Kono leading their way, Lou bringing up the rear. He didn't know how much time he had spent in that cage, but everything appeared in slow motion around him. Movements above everything. They walked limply along hallways, they went up a couple of stairs, again some hallways. And finally, after what seemed to be a very long road inside this labyrinth, the light. The sun. The first natural light he could see after he didn't know how long. He frowned, closing his eyes and groaned. Too bright for him. Too much to bear. He could no longer stand up, even with help. Dizziness and nausea invaded him once again, his head spinning and swinging from side to side. His knees buckled, his weakness overwhelming him.

"Hey, hey! Steve!"

But Danny and Chin couldn't do anything but put him gently on the ground warmed by the sun. Without thinking, the detective placed two of his fingers on Steve's carotid to feel for a pulse. He sighed in relief; weak but there. He nodded at his partner, saying without a word that their friend was still alive, that he had just passed out, probably from exhaustion. He was still trembling, shivering.

"I already called for an ambulance", Lou said to the group.

Danny didn't nod, he was just focused on his friend's body. With the bright light, he could now see everything. Some nasty bruises were already forming on his chest and stomach. The left side of his face was covered in blood, two gashes bleeding heavily, especially the one near his temple. A few bumps puzzled him: the skin was burnt around the small circular wounds. Looking attentively, these wounds always appeared by two on his torso, as if he had received numerous electric shocks. It partially explained why Steve was trembling like a leaf; he had tortured by various manners.

"He's been through Hell...", Danny commented more for himself than for his colleagues.

The detective looked everywhere he could. He also noticed some very small red spots on Steve's right arm, too small to be tracks of a taser.

"I've got traces of injection over his right forearm."

Chin got out of his almost lethargic state, looking for any other traces. He spotted some after thirty seconds of research.

"I've got the same thing in his neck. And... Also his right forearm."

"He's been drugged", Danny concluded, frightening Kono.

What did they give to him? Danny chose to close his eyes as he shook his head from side to side, Kono only placed one of her hand over her mouth in order to stop her urge to scream, the two other conscious men were just unable to move or say anything. What seemed to be hours appeared to only be minutes; the time was less linear when one faced such a situation when a really good friend was hurt in front of one. Sirens. Finally, the paramedics were here.

"What do we have?" One of the paramedics asked, surely the one in charge.

"He's been tortured and drugged", was all Danny could say at the time.

He was so shocked and worried about his friend. The paramedics inserted an IV on Steve's hand, carefully blocking the tube with tape and within five minutes, they were both ready to transport him to the nearest hospital. Fortunately, it was Tripler, the army medical hospital; they had his file there at least. The trip to the hospital was rather quiet, Danny not leaving Steve for a second while the paramedic tried to have a visual on Steve's vitals. In less than ten minutes, the ambulance stopped and the Commander had been rushed into one of the many rooms of the ER, followed closely by Danny, the nursing staff being too busy to notice that he was there in the room while accessing their patient. An old doctor took a stethoscope from around his neck, placing the tips in his ears and the tunable diaphragm on Steve's chest to check his breathing and heartbeat.

"Breathing's normal. What about his vitals, Chen?" he asked while her colleague hooked the hospital cardiac monitor on the three electrodes placed on his battered torso before wrapping a new BP-cuff around one of his arms and clipping an oximeter from the hospital on his index finger.

"Heartrate at ninety-eight, BP at hundred and fifty-four over ninety-seven. Sats at 95%."

The doctor in charge of the ER, Healani, grabbed her penlight and shoved the light into Steve's eyes to see any reaction.

"Pupils are slightly dilated."

"W-what do you mean they're dilated? It's bad? Please tell me he's okay. He's okay?"

Danny was panicking now. He knew what dilated pupils meant, and that was one of his biggest fear. He approached his friend again, trembling from head to toes.

"Sir, please, you need to step away and let us do our job", Healani said brutally, turning towards him with a cold gaze.

"Just tell me he's okay, for God's sake!" he screamed at the paramedics, startling everyone around him.

"Sir, detective", the nurse in charge, Kala, started, seeing that her colleagues were working on the Commander. "We are doing everything that we can to know about his conditions, alright? But we need you to step back for a moment so that we can do our job and stabilize your coworker."

"He's not my coworker right now, he's my friend, okay? And I really need to know he's okay."

Seeing the distress into Danny's gaze, Kala approached him and moved him outside the room gently and carefully.

"That's what we're trying to figure out. Please, you have to wait outside, we'll come back to you as soon as we know your friend is stable."

Finally, Danny let go and nodded. Tears were ready to fall from his eyes as he could see everyone working on Steve in slow motion. He passed his left hand over his mouth and his cold lips trying to repress slight nausea and dizziness. His whole body was trembling with concern, he felt like trapped, his breathing shallow as sweat was dangerously invading his face. He was panicking. He turned around, running out of this Hell also well-known as the emergency room. As he rushed outside, he tried to take some deep breaths, chasing away his slowly increasing urge to retch. Once again, his heart was beating so hard that he thought his chest was going to explode. After five minutes, he finally calmed down, carefully sweeping away the cold sweat on his face with one of his arms. He came back inside, going to the men's room to splash some cold water on his visage. He waited to completely be calm, or close to calm to get out and take a seat in the ER, pretending to wait patiently for any news about Steve. He waited ten minutes, then twenty minutes, still nothing. After thirty minutes, Lou, Chin and Kono joined him, seeing how emotionally unstable their teammate and friend was. They were all worried of course, but Danny was a real mess, everyone could see it, nobody could blame him for that. An hour passed before a doctor joined them in the room, unnoticed by the group for a moment. This doctor could see how his patient's condition was affecting his colleagues, he could feel the high tension filling the air.

"You're the family of Lieutenant-Commander Steve McGarrett?" he finally managed to ask.

Everyone raised their head, finally aware that someone was there to give them some news about their fallen and broken friend. Danny was the first to react, standing in a hurry and approaching the physician.

"How is he, doctor?"

"You are?" he asked, well-aware that he had seen him not a long time ago into the room, screaming at him.

"I am Detective Danny Williams. I am listed as his next of kin and moreover I am his best friend", he gently said, trying to hide his furry. "And if you want to talk to me, we're all ohana here. So tell us how is he, please."

"Alright. He's still unconscious, but as his body has been through a lot, it's not a major concern right now. He has a moderate concussion due to the shot to the head, and..."

"He got shot?!" Danny screamed, interrupting the doctor and frightening everyone in the process.

The latter turned around, passing his both hands through his hair, as he was used to when he was really angry; something his teammates had noticed several times already.

"I... I thought you knew, but apparently, I was wrong. I'm sorry. It's just a graze at the level of his left temple, deep enough to require a few stitches but we did a CT-scan and we found nothing to worry about."

Danny nodded, finally turning back to the doctor, still angry at the fact that Wo Fat had shot his friend to the head. He could have killed Steve. It should have killed Steve. He wondered for several seconds if the gunshot they had all heard wasn't just a simple shot but two shots fired at the same time. Danny closed his eyes, thinking about it; Steve and Wo Fat, both with guns, trying to kill the other, firing to the head of each other.

"May I continue?" The doctor asked, bringing the detective back to reality.

He shook his head slightly, chasing all the bad thoughts out of his mind.

"Yes, please."

"Uh, he has a couple of cracked ribs, but surprisingly nothing is broken. However, it should be painful to breathe for a week or so. We also found some traces of electrical shocks, and that's our main concern right now. He has short periods of arrhythmia while treating him, so we need to monitor his heart very closely. It should fade with time though. I ordered some blood tests as well, and we found sodium thiopental and methoxetamine in his bloodstream."

"Uh... Sorry to interrupt, doc, but what's sodium thi..."

"Sodium thiopental? It's what we commonly call a truth serum. And methoxetamine is a dissociative hallucinogen. Consider it as a cousin of phencyclidine, also known as PCP."

"So, he's really been drugged?"

"It appears so. These two joint chemicals have a major side effect; the blood sugar level drops sharply. However, his blood tests show that his sugar and nutrient levels are relatively high, which I do not explain."

"We, uh... Our forensics found this where he has been found. Is it related?"

Chin took his phone from his pocket and showed to the physician the picture Noelani had sent. It was the two bags filled with an orange substance. The doctor, Dr Halani, zoomed on the writing and nodded slightly.

"Yes, that's why his tests are surprisingly correct. It's a mix of nutrients to keep a body's integrity. And they had the decency to add B12."

"What is this?"

"It's what gives the orange colour to the fluids. The body needs it to remain healthy."

"So... He's been drugged, but... His captors took also care of him? That's what you said?"

"It seems so. Maybe it was to keep him alive long enough to talk? We see this a lot you know, more often than you might think actually."

"Basically, we are trying to flush his system of any drugs. We're giving fluids to keep him hydrated, as well as some supplemental oxygen through a nasal cannula to help his breathing. We also sutured his left eyebrow and we are waiting for him to wake up. But as I said earlier in our conversation, his body's been through a lot this past twenty-four hours, so he needs to rest."

"Can we see him, at least?"

"He's been settled into a room and we'll monitor him closely for any change, but yes. You can see him, but one at the time."

Danny turned toward his colleagues, who were all looking at him. Words unspoken, they knew the detective had to be the one with Steve.

"Keep us updated. And tell our stubborn boss to wake up soon", Lou stated, smiling weirdly as the two cousins nodded, agreeing with the former SWAT man.

"Will do", Danny replied, following the doctor into the hallway. "He's really okay, doc?" he asked anyway when they stopped close to a door.

He wanted to be reassured about Steve's conditions, which was understandable after what he had seen on the scene and in the ambulance.

"All things considered, yes. Just some arhythmia here and there, but we are monitoring this."

"What about the concussion and the shot to the head?"

"His body needs plenty of rest, I'm not concerned right now. But if he doesn't wake up in the next... I would say eight to ten hours, we'll run further tests to see if we didn't miss anything."

"So you're concerned, basically."

"As I said, I'm not concerned yet. Just call a nurse if there's any change. You can go inside."

"Thank you, doctor. And uh... I am truly sorry about earlier, I... I didn't mean to... Uh..."

"Don't worry, detective. I know what you're going through too. You've discovered your friend in a rather tough situation, you were worried about him and you still are. I completely understand your behaviour, trust me. I've seen a lot worse", he explained with a smile. "It's already forgotten."

"Thank you", Danny said, forcing a smile as he still felt sorry about what happened earlier in the ER.

The physician smiled again and went back to work after having tried to reassure Danny, probably in vain. He was so worried about his friend right now that he could have a heart attack because of it. He could hear and feel sharp and rapid thuds in his chest, slapping his ribs constantly. He sighed deeply and closed his eyes for a moment, trying to get rid of any negative thought. Steve was okay, he was alive. He just needed to rest, nothing to worry about. It didn't work. All Danny could see and think was how bad things could possibly happen. What about his arrhythmia? His heart was beating irregularly then, so what if... No. No 'what if'. He had to stop thinking about this. He shook his head, clearing his thoughts before placing his left hand on the handle. Slowly, he entered, soon surrounded by almost steady beeps from the heart monitor attached to Steve's chest. He closed the door behind him, turning around to have a look at his still asleep friend. He froze at the sight of this unmoving form lying in the hospital. It hurt him even more than anything he had thought. Actually, he hadn't really seen Steve in a hospital bed before. Well, he did once or twice, but it was the time to get checked out. It was not the same here; he was there as a patient, monitored closely by nurses, injured badly. Because of this son of a bitch. He was so glad he was dead now because he would have killed him himself if not. The layer of dust, sweat and water had disappeared from his skin, his both hands resting on his hips. An IV had been settled on the top of his right hand, providing him necessary and essential fluids. On his bare chest were landing the three electrodes of the cardiac monitor, a BP-cuff had been wrapped around his right arm and an oximeter was hooked to his left index finger. His left eyebrow and temple had been carefully sutured and patched, both areas becoming slightly blue and purple because of the force of the impact of the bullet and anything that had been slammed on his eye. From where he was, he could see the bruises and bumps on practically the rest of his body, especially on his chest and abdomen. Wo Fat banged him up pretty badly. That was probably a hell of a fight. Trembling, his legs ready to give in under his own weight, he approached slowly, almost holding his breath with every step he took. Finally arrived near the bed, he sat in the uncomfortable plastic chair. The slight and steady hiss of oxygen running down the nasal cannula to get into Steve's airways bothered him, but at least it kept him company. He needed his friend, but he was still asleep. The more minutes passed and the less he managed to keep calm, his anxiety growing increasingly. He stood up, pacing around from left to right, or back and forth, sitting down for a few minutes after that and started everything again. And thus, over and over again. After an hour, a nurse came in to check on Steve, disturbing Danny's process. At first, the caretaker was surprised, but she said nothing, carefully writing down the Commander's vitals in the medical chart clipped to the end of the bed. She got out as quickly as she had entered, leaving the Detective Williams in the solitude into which he had sunk for an hour now. And another hour passed, then two, and three. With the beginning of this fourth hour without any change, Dr Halani had asked the nurse on shift to prepare a Foley catheter. This had greatly worried Danny, but the physician had explained to him longly why the procedure was essential for his friend; to clean his blood, he had to urinate, which Steve couldn't do naturally in view of his condition. The catheter was there to make things easier. Danny had joked about it with the doctor, saying that it was definitely at that moment that his best friend would wake up. But nothing happened; Steve remained motionless. His heart rate had not even fluctuated, his blood pressure as well. So, he resumed his process, pacing around and sitting for a while. But after six hours waiting for his brother to wake up, fatigue took over and he slowly drifted to sleep.

A/N: So basically, for the newt chapter, Steve will wake up (of course), but as you can guess, it won't be easy for everyone...

I hope you liked this first chapter and I bet you will like the next one!

Looking forward to read your reviews though ^^