I do not own Hawaii Five-0 or any characters. No copyright infringement intended.

Notes: my thanks to everyone for such kind reviews - including the guests whom I can't directly reply to. Offers are cookies are willingly accepted!

H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O

"Daddy."

Charlie's voice echoed through the broken walls of his stressed imagination which was nothing more than a swirl of color and badly disjointed images. Stuck on the fringes of waking, Danny jolted where he lay on the sofa, half aware that Charlie ... here ... was just a fragment of a dream. But another part craved to stay inside his head no matter how disturbing the dream threatened to become. When another thick black form began to solidify into someone recognizable, Danny mumbled unintelligibly, brow furrowed in distress, a leg shifting under a blanket, and his already raspy breath noticeably altering.

"Danno." Charlie was crying now. Heart-wrenching sobs, arms pumping wildly. Nothing more than a blue swaddled blur held high in Stan Edward's arms. Too young to talk, yet he was as he reached out for Danny, his confused eyes of a startling clarity as they met his own. "Danno!"

He woke as Charlie inconceivably fell, coughing raggedly into the back of the sofa, his throat just as prickly as before and feeling no better. The dream was fading too fast, leaving him only with an unsettling memory of fear and helplessness. Without needing to move too much, he peered a bit over his shoulder, able to see that the room was nearly pitch dark except for a soft yellow-ish glow. Based on the rattle of the windows and general whine around the eaves, he could also tell that the storm was still raging outside. He didn't know where Steve was and lacked the immediate wherewithal to seek him out.

Not much had improved, in fact he felt worse. So he closed his eyes again, unable to find a welcoming cool spot on his pillow as the last dregs of the dream come nightmare flew away. Fighting the urge to swallow, he squirreled his shoulders down deeper and tried to go back to sleep, his fingers clamped around the edges of the blanket which Steve had covered him with. He tried hard but two things forced him to move, one a very personal need definitely more urgent than the other.

Resenting every move he made, Danny wearily untangled his legs from the blanket in order to crawl himself into a seated position. Poised on the edge of the sofa and shivering, he swayed in place feeling decidedly weak and off center from the rest of his immediate world. Breathing carefully through his mouth, he dimly realized that the lack of light was a blessing in disguise because of a dull quaking throb inside his head. He could see just enough thanks to the pleasant glow from strategically placed battery-operated campfire lanterns. Barring the storm, the room was relatively quiet, and for a moment those sounds of wind, pelting rain and thunder were all he heard until a few odd metallic clanks rang out from the direction of the kitchen. He could barely think, readily accepting instead what the noises meant which only gave credence to that second thing which he'd sensed upon waking. The scent of food cooking; maybe even soup and he sniffed cautiously through a somewhat deadened nose, his stomach giving a confused, plaintive ping at the concept of food.

Trying to negotiate with his first urges, Danny sat there for a long while, contemplating if he really had to take care of himself in the bathroom despite what his body was demanding as an ever-increasing need. He had no choice in the end as he resolutely readied himself to stand.

"Fine," he mumbled hoarsely in disgust, promptly coughing into his hand. His internal argument was also weak as he fuzzily calculated the distance from where he was sitting to the downstairs bathroom, wondering if the general wooziness in his head would give him nothing more than a spectacular excuse for a face-plant into Steve's hardwood floor. There was no doubt though about what he needed to do and he bemoaned his achy misery as he shakily stumbled to his feet. Shivering from chill after chill, yet too sick to even pull the blanket back around his shoulders, Danny wobbled in place between sofa and coffee table.

"Good. You're up," Steve said, suddenly appearing in the doorway. "You should try to eat something. Soup. I made soup ... a broth really." He stared hard at Danny's hunched posture and then studied his complexion, the sickly sheen of his face making him appear even more sallow in the partial shadows cast by the battery-powered light. He frowned when he stepped closer and got a better look at his friend. If he didn't know better, it looked as if Danny had been crying and Steve hesitated before needing to ask.

"Danny? You okay, buddy?"

"Yeah," Danny rasped tightly. Steve's silhouette was back-lit by whatever other camping lanterns he'd used in the kitchen and Danny blinked at him blearily. He knew that Steve could easily see him and read that something more was wrong. But the dream was gone and there was no point in discussing something which he'd woefully fail at describing.

"Yeah, I'm good,' Danny lied. A sickly nod having to serve as his only method of further acknowledgement.

Steve clenched his jaw tightly shut to avoid saying more. Instead, he met Danny less than halfway on his short journey to steady an elbow, ready to be defensive if met with rejection. But nothing happened. Not a single word or sound of objection passed Danny's lips. An unhealthy heat was radiating off his friend like a furnace and if anything, Danny seemed to lean into him more. The only sound which Danny did make was a sarcastic noise of self-reproach when he automatically thumbed the light switch in the bathroom despite the fact that there was an obvious power failure and that Steve had already placed two more camping lanterns on the floor.

The next few things all happened in slow motion. Inhaling sharply through his nose when Danny gently pulled away from him, Steve backed up as the door swung closed in his face. He'd been soundlessly thanked and then summarily dismissed. He stayed in the hallway though, fidgeting and on edge. His ears trained for any sign of a problem or murmur for help.

"Okay?" Steve softly asked when the door slowly opened minutes later. "Ready to try and eat?" Danny's face and the fringes of his hair were damp from the dousing he'd given himself in the sink. Rivulets of water still ran down his neck from the half-assed attempt to cool his over-heated skin. Again, he only nodded in reply, seemingly unsurprised by Steve's unshakable attention and once more silent about receiving physical support as he tottered dangerously back down the hallway.

In the dimly lit kitchen, Danny stared dumbly at the glass of water and steaming bowl of amber-colored broth. His fingers were draped over the spoon when he finally leaned forward, the cough rumbling in his chest at the same time Mother Nature offered the same loudly audible objection outside. He glanced up at Steve where he leaned almost too casually against the counter. Distrustful of his voice, Danny nodded again before committing himself to the bowl, knowing that an arsenal of over-the-counter medicines were on his near horizon and that he needed something in his system to avoid a worse traitorous response.

Much to Steve's delight, he managed it all, too. The broth which stung his throat at first, the small offering of dry crackers which got pasty in his mouth, and then downed more than half the glass of water along with the acetaminophen and cough medicine which he'd guessed would be coming. By the time he was done, he wasn't even that cold anymore. His stomach had ceased with its mild complaints and he was now feeling almost too warm. Most of the chills had miraculously departed, too. However, his head was thumping heavily to his heartbeat, his eyes were nothing more than two burning holes in their sockets, and his energy officially sapped. He needed to lay down with a desperation which only a body-wide illness could demand.

"Need to lay down," Danny muttered aloud, relieved that his throat even seemed less sore and that no cough threatened on the heels of his short statement. With thoughts of retreating back to his place on the sofa, he aimed himself in that general direction and nearly fell over his own two feet, only Steve's quick thinking preventing the tumble.

Directed by Steve's guiding hands, Danny sank down as soon as the backs of his knees connected with the sofa. "Weather report?" He murmured as he leaned back into a generously fluffed mound of pillows, his eyes sparkling brightly from fever while he stared up into Steve's face.

"No change," Steve offered in reply. "The reports were spot on this time ... power went out about three hours ago; around the time you first fell asleep. We're still good and you ... you still need to get well."

Unable to sleep, Steve had been alternating between an obsessive need to check on Danny while he slept and monitoring NOAA's reports each hour on his commercial weather radio. What he'd been learning quickly, at least when it came to the weather, was that there was really no need to listen more frequently to NOAA. And, as long as the storm didn't worsen, Steve remained on a fairly even keel in that regard, too. But Danny was another story entirely and he had to fight to keep his face passively calm as he measured the noticeable weight of the very un-Danny-like dwindling of spirit.

"What's going to happen?" Danny suddenly asked. His eyes glistening with more than fever as he stammered over his words, tears choking his voice. "To Charlie ... and me? I can't see him like this ... the doctors ... he barely knows me now. I need to be there ... Steve. I can't miss any of these appointments; I've missed too much already with him. Why the hell did I get sick now? Why ... now?"

Steve winced, any hopes of remaining passive dashed in an instant. The questions were entirely rhetorical, yet he'd hoped Danny wouldn't realize that fact about being with Charlie so early on and Steve clearly should have known better. With an aggrieved sigh, Steve found just enough space to sit next to Danny.

"It'll be okay," he whispered lamely as he tucked the blanket over his friend's chest. "It will ... things have a way of working out."

"Do they?" Danny muttered as if giving more credence to Steve's private thoughts before he seemed to switch to a different gear. "Sorry ... Steve, for this." His eyes closed before he finished offering the oddly timed apology; the usual verve and vigor snuffed by fever. But then, his eyes flew open with a momentary flare of a more typical stubbornness and Steve found a fond smile.

"What? Why, Danno?" Steve asked in all honesty. "What are you sorry about?"

"Me," Danny rasped, blinking wildly as he forced his vision to focus back on Steve's face. "Sick ... and all. The case, too ... been no help."

"The case? Seriously, Danny?" Steve objected in surprise. "I could care less about the case!" Of all things, he'd never guessed an apology for something which his partner certainly never shirked his responsibility over.

"You have absolutely nothing to be sorry about because all of this will work out," he whispered with a sincere smile, voicing his plan as an adamant order of sorts. "You're run down like I said before, Danny. You're going to take this storm as mandatory downtime and focus on getting better. Case be damned. This thing will run its course well before Charlie's first test and you'll be there for him. Especially if you stay off your feet and just sleep."

He waited Danny out until he got a faint agreeable nod before his glassy eyes slid closed for good. Then Steve sat there longer, once more balanced on the side of his own sofa until he was sure that his friend had fallen into a quiet sleep.

~ to be continued ~