I do not own Hawaii Five-0 or any characters. No copyright infringement intended.
Notes: thanks everyone - I appreciate all the wonderful comments. Having some challenge w one of the chapters, so posting might be just a bit delayed from day to day until it feels right.
Today's giggle: every chapter of this that I have in DocManager say "Epilogue" A or B or C, etc. I tried ... really I did!
H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O
Dawn had only just begun its slow approach when he was discovered by a hospital security guard. Danny blinked owlishly against the flash of light which flickered over his face and his body, towards the man's silhouette which blocked any kind of egress Danny might have been considering. The man's shadow was wide and thick, a testament to a portly, out of shape build. And still dark, Danny couldn't see the security guard's features even when the flashlight was politely averted to shine mostly across his hips and the narrow catwalk itself.
"Sir? Detective Williams, please just ... don't move," the guard stated rather firmly when he examined Danny's hiding place. There was a soft curse and the man backed up a few steps, giving Danny an idea of his age. Or at the bare minimum, of his experience. The guy was mature and had been around the block a few times. Though obviously concerned, he didn't test or press a situation which he didn't fully understand. Danny couldn't help but roll his eyes though at the first couple of questions.
"Are ... are uh, you all right, sir? You're not hurt or anything? We've been looking for you everywhere." At least the guy was a professional and not dissolving into some kind of nervous excitement for having discovered Danny's hiding place. His concern and his questions were indeed fair and Danny nodded, barely able to hide an aggrieved sigh.
"I'm fine." Danny found himself responding though he'd have preferred not to. He hadn't known that his voice would still be tunneling inside his head. He didn't sound like himself at all. And though he replied and knew the man was nervous, he opted not to move just yet. Truth be told, he'd been sinking into a place without sound or thought or feeling. The quiet had been soothing. He'd even managed to dampen the worst of the two men's dying moments which teased him inside that heated core. Now though, they threatened to surge up once more and Danny visibly shivered.
The snap, like a sharp kink in the neck. His neck; their necks. A shared feeling of disbelief - silent screams of terror as lungs suddenly ceased working - a black so dark that Danny fell in, too, nearly incapable of finding his way out. Life stopped for a hairsbreadth and then kick-started like a punch to the stomach.
Coming back to reality now was jarring to his system and speaking, difficult. His head felt disconnected from the rest of his body and for a split second, Danny felt nauseous. If he tried to get up, he anticipated taking an ungainly tumble and it just wasn't worth the attempt.
"Central? This is Curtis. I have him on the roof ... opposite side of the helipad," the guard was calmly reporting into his radio. "Well, no. It's, uh ... not the best spot. So, I'd ... uh, rather he not ... move just yet. We should... uh, keep any activity to a real quiet ... minimum if you catch my drift. But yeah, he seems all right."
There was a pause and the bulky shadow shifted as some kind of orders were shared and then the guard's reply was simple. "Copy that."
Danny barely bothered to listen to the short exchange. He closed his eyes as he leaned his head back into the wall and waited for the first shoe to drop. He felt a keen resentment for having been found made worse by the man's call to his superiors. Danny didn't want anyone's help. He'd found a quiet haven. Danny didn't know how long he thought he'd have to himself, but his short sojourn was soon to end. He felt oddly... betrayed by being found out so fast. The security guard was only doing his job though. What had he expected to happen? At least he wasn't being dragged away in a straight jacket ... at least not yet. He grimaced to himself when he heard others approaching; so many he couldn't judge the size of the group about to descend upon him.
"Where? Where is he?" Danny juddered where he sat, blinking his eyes back open in surprise when Steve's voice was the first he could discern. Loud. Demanding and the tone, curt. Of course though ... of course because Steve would have been the one to raise the alarm on his wayward partner.
There it was then: the second shoe.
"Danno?" The thick silhouette was pre-empted as Steve rudely shoved past the guard, taking the man's flashlight as he came. "What the hell are you doing out here?"
His approach was rapid and if Danny had needed space, well Steve certainly wasn't about to give him any at all. In fact, Steve ignored Curtis' quiet warning to heed caution and he didn't even wait for Danny to form a reply. There was a pained grunt as Steve's knees hit metal. Danny grimaced unhappily as he mirrored a sketchy ache through both of his own knees and his chest pinged in sympathy. Steve's breathing was off-kilter, made worse when he dropped the flashlight to the side in lieu of wrapping his arms around Danny's upper body to virtually heave him into his chest. Even if it might have been a beat or two off, Danny adopted the same broken cadence.
Steve hurt. Steve was hurting himself more with his awkward position. Despite all of it, Danny didn't try to break his friend's tenacious hold, but he did cringe when he felt Steve's sweaty, cold chill through the thin hospital gown; the stressful tremble in his friend's body. Under his ear, Steve's heart was thudding far too quickly, his lungs boasting a ragged echo. When Danny glanced up, he groaned out loud at what he saw in the pained crinkle of his partner's eyes.
Steve hurt. Steve was hurting ... and though not as strong as it once might have been, Danny was keenly aware of it.
"I'm sorry," Steve said, his tone precisely the opposite of being even remotely remorseful. "But Danny ... you promised. We promised to ride this out together. Why didn't you come for me?" His worry and emotional pain were bleeding through, too. Steve wasn't trying to hide his distress either and perhaps by that point, he just couldn't. With that one shared look and Steve's failed attempt at biting back a breathy, sharp cough, Danny mirrored enough of Steve's woes to tell him a number of things.
Physical hurt - a dull ache through his middle from cracked ribs; lungs that were sore and bruised, making the simple act of breathing a panted, breathless whistle. A tightness around his eyes which signaled the dull thud of a headache.
All of that was worsened by Steve's assertive actions and contentious tone of voice. But Danny couldn't blame his partner for being upset. Danny understood Steve's alarm, the fear he was projecting, and his personal insult at having been briefly shunned. The stunning mix of things which came at Danny were entirely of his own doing and it eased only when he looked away.
"Danny. Why didn't you wake me up? What the hell happened?" Steve asked as he propped Danny up higher, his breath a panted whine in his throat while trying to get another look into Danny's face. Something which Danny abjectly refused to allow a second time.
"No, no don't. I'm fine ... nothing's wrong ... nothing happened. Not really ... I only couldn't sleep," Danny partly lied as he nearly evaded the confusing blending of physical discomfort and emotional turmoil steeped in Steve's eyes. His mouth was a thin, bloodless line another testament to his level of pain and difficulty in breathing and Danny grew dizzy. He argued Steve's persistence then, ducking his head back down and away to avoid the onslaught.
"I'm sorry ... you ... you're hurting and I'm okay," Danny insisted. He took a deep breath, his eyes closed to center himself, well aware that Steve was seeing right through him. And if he couldn't see, he certainly could feel his reaction. In fact, the two of them were engaged in a tricky round robin-like game of emotional hide and seek. A game that probably wouldn't have any winners. "Really, I'm good. You ... you need to be off your feet though."
"No, no you're not ... good. If you were, you wouldn't have left the room in the first place. And if you were so damned worried about me and what I'd think or wind up doing, you sure as hell wouldn't be out here either," Steve complained, distinctly ignoring Danny's words and observations. "No one has been able to find you for over an hour! The hospital is practically on lockdown. What the hell were you thinking? Why didn't you wake me up? Why did you just ... leave? You scared the shit out of me ... no one knew where you went. No one knew when. I thought ... I thought the worst. Danny, shit. Why the hell did you decide to sit way the hell up here?"
Steve cursed helplessly as he got a better look at where Danny had managed to squirrel himself away. And in response to the change in Steve's tone, Danny peeked out at the horizon, too. He raised a circumspect eyebrow when he realized just what he'd done.
As the sky brightened towards dawn and he could see more, Danny found himself perched on the edge of a concrete and metal precipice. Most of his legs were dangling stories above the earth. He hadn't realized that. His judgement had been incredibly off. No, strike that. His judgment had been absolutely non-existent. Danny knew what it might have looked like then - he understood the security guard's admonition about not moving - the quiet call to his central dispatch - and he snuffled an odd laugh.
"Oops," he muttered hoarsely. Danny tried to smile, but he lost the plot as he watched an early morning gull screech by at their level, gliding aggressively towards the Pacific. Behind the white wings, the sky was already an impossible blur of oranges and pinks.
"What are you doing out here?" Steve asked again before he looked around, fully taking in the height and birds-eye view. Steve exhaled low and long, worried and on edge when he dared to glance down. The height was indeed dizzying.
"What were you thinking, huh?"
"Wasn't gonna jump, Steven," Danny said. "Just needed some time ... some space ... somewhere where it would be quiet."
"You sure as hell found that," Steve replied as he ran his hand blindly up and down Danny's arm, feasibly trying to warm him up from the night-time chill. Or maybe it was just due to nervousness. Regardless, thin hospital garb certainly hadn't been enough to wear on a rooftop. Danny had scarcely noticed and this time, his shivering had a lot more to do with the briskness of a cold breeze.
"I needed to be alone," Danny murmured apologetically. "That's all."
On his knees next to Danny, his arms still bracketing him, Steve sighed. He paused, ignoring the few hospital staff behind them before speaking again, his tone low and hopeful. "You know ... the doctors said your last blood tests were normal. The drug is out of your system; there isn't a trace of it anywhere. You're over it, Danny ... so, this ... what's happening? Why did you leave to come out here? You need to tell me."
Steve's voice fell about two octaves on his last few words and Danny snorted as he shook his head to object what the doctors had evidently concluded.
They were wrong; all of them. They knew nothing ... their tests meant nothing and they had no idea what he was experiencing.
Danny knew Steve was asking only out of sheer hope because he knew that Steve already understood the truth about what was happening to him. Danny knew that Steve saw how he was continuing to unravel. But what Steve didn't quite know yet was just how badly - or why. Danny shook his head as he looked at his hands which were balled into fists in his lap. He forced his fingers to uncurl and then turned them over, palm up, to stare at them.
They were still far too quiet for the hands of a killer.
The resulting tight sound that came out of Danny's chest was more of a hysterical hiccup, than laugh. "I can't undo it. Any of it," he said. He glanced up towards Steve then, held his hands held high in the air. They continued to be amazingly steady for all he was burning up inside.
"See? Don't you see?"
"Danny?" Steve asked. His tone was hesitant, his worry spiking. Danny could tell that he was scaring Steve but now for an an entirely different reason. "What are you doing, huh? Let's go in. We can talk inside, okay?"
"I killed them," Danny suddenly blurted out. He didn't sound like himself at all. His voice was reedy, thin and hollow to his own ear. "I killed them and felt it ... and inside me now? I still feel their last ... their, uh ...final ...the way they ...the way they were there and then just ... weren't. It's like a hole inside my chest. I'm empty ... it's just ... empty, used up and yet, ... there's this fire, too. It's wrong. It's just ... all so wrong."
That was as far as he got before his voice dried up completely and his face crumpled in distress. He wrapped his arms around his middle as he sagged into Steve's hold, his face hidden away from everything and everyone around him.
He didn't know what to do. Maybe he should have jumped as the security guard had assumed he might do - as Steve might have even assumed the first time he saw him sitting there so high up - though that terrible thought had been the very furthest from Danny's mind. And frankly, even though things seemed to be spiraling out of control, it still was as Steve awkwardly hugged him closer, evidently at a loss to say anything at all.
~ to be continued ~