Author's note: WOW! I have never had this kind of response before! Thank you, you guys are wonderful and because you are so amazing I wanted to thank you with this second chapter. Hopefully you like it as much as the first. Danny's having a little trouble adjusting to life without Steve.

And to tell myself that I'm doing fine is only making believe...without you, what do I do with me?~ Tayna Tucker, Without You (What Do I Do With Me?)

Danny was good at following orders.

Steve had effectively ordered him not to be a pain in the ass while he was deployed and so far he had been the poster boy for good behavior. He rarely went off on one of his rants and played nice with the Governor who was constantly looking over his shoulder. She had allowed the taskforce to continue on in their leader's absence and had named Danny the lead but she was constantly checking up on him. Chin knew it bothered him to know that the Governor didn't fully trust his ability like she had Steve but Danny never complained.

It was starting to worry Chin in a way. It wasn't like the detective to be so subdued and calm. When he confronted Danny about it two weeks after Steve had left, Danny had simply told him that he had no need to rant because Steve wasn't trying to kill him on a daily basis. At the mention of his partner, his eyes dulled a little and he spent the rest of the afternoon in his office with the blinds closed.

Chin had promised Steve that he would look after Danny so he had decided to take him out for dinner and a couple beers to get him out of that big empty house. Danny had seemed depressed today. He tried to hide it but Chin could see the weariness in his body language and the dullness in his eyes.

"Why so bummed brah?" Chin asked as he swallowed his swig of beer.

"I haven't heard from Steve." Danny said sadly as he played with his bottle. "It's been a month-exactly one month-and I haven't heard squat from him since he got on that damn plane. I mean I understand that he can't just pick up the phone and call me but I would have thought by now I'd have heard something from him." Chin smiled. This was the closest to a rant he heard in awhile.

"I'm sure as soon as he can he'll contact you."

"I know it's just…."

"You're worried." Chin finished.

"My partner is on the other side of the world with a license to kill and a team who is there to encourage such behavior…of course I'm worried!" Danny exclaimed.

"Didn't Steve tell you not to worry?"

"No, I told me not to be a pain. Have I been a pain? I don't think I've been a pain. I actually think that the Vatican may be calling soon to tell me I'm up for sainthood I've been so good." Danny waved his hand around dismissively as he talked. It made Chin smile.

"Your saintly behavior is actually more frightening than the ranting." Chin confessed. He and Kono had been worried that Danny's easy acceptance of everything was really a front and they didn't know how much longer he could keep it up. And when it did all fall apart it was going to be massive. "Are you sleeping alright?"

"Are you kidding? I have that giant bed all to myself without having to deal with Steve's long legs and arms getting all tangled up in the sheets and stealing my covers…. And it's nice and quiet without his soft breathing in my ear….and I can go to bed whenever I want without him waking me up with a kiss on the head….and wake up when I want and not when he decides to get up and go for a run..." Danny's voice trailed off. Even a simple thing like sleeping had way too many reminders of the fact that he was currently alone. Damn he missed Steve.

"How's Grace dealing with it?" Chin had noted the wistful tone in the other man's voice but had chosen not to say anything. Danny was likely to get defensive about it and not open up anymore.

"She doesn't understand why she can't call him. I've tried to explain that he's very far away and very busy chasing bad guys to which she responded that Jersey is far away too and she can call the family there so why can't she call Steve? I told her she should write him a letter with everything she wants to say."

"Ya? Did that work?"

"Oh ya. She's written I don't know how many letters and drawn a bunch of pictures. Now if I just knew where the hell to send it." Danny remarked. This 'where-in-the-world-is-Steve-McGarrett' was not a game he wanted to play anymore.

"Hang in there, bruddah." Chin clasped his hand on his shoulder. Danny sighed and nodded. He was trying, lord knows he was trying, but damn if it wasn't hard.

The nightmares were getting worse.

Not that he would admit it if Chin or Kono were to ask. They weren't every night but they were often enough to be a disruption in his sleeping patterns. The dreams were never the same. Sometimes Steve was dead, sometimes he had been captured and other times he had returned but he wasn't Steve anymore. PTSD, IED's, any horrifying way to ruin a person and Danny had dreamed about it.

In tonight's dream he had been awoken early in the morning by the Governor standing at his door. She was there to inform him that the humvee that Steve had been riding in had been involved in a roadside bombing. He had suffered a traumatic brain injury and was unlikely to ever regain consciousness or be taken off of life support.

He had woken up choking on the breath that had been kicked out of his chest. They were too real. The sights, the sounds, the feelings, they were all getting to be too real. He sat up until he caught his breath and then threw himself down onto the other side of the bed where Steve's pillow was. It was like the safety blanket that Grace had when she was a baby. The pillow still smelled like Steve and inhaling that scent calmed him and allowed him the ability to believe that he was just waiting for him to come to bed for the night. Of course, the delusion only lasted so long before he was back trapped in another terrifying dream.

He thought about telling Chin or Kono about the dreams but then they would worry about him which was what he was supposed to be avoiding doing. Besides what could they do to help him? He was pretty sure that as long as Steve was gone his mind was going to screw with him and make him think horrible things so what was the point in calling attention to himself? He knew one thing that would help the situation would be to hear Steve's voice telling him that he was fine and to stop worrying. But until then, a cold pillow and a couple more hours of fitful sleep were just going to have to do.