Disclaimer: I obviously do not own Hawaii Five-0, or any of the characters, places, or events contained therein. Which, we can all agree, is for the best.

Note: Yay! I knew I loved this fandom! As I mentioned, when the response merits more chapters, I try to oblige, and, since I'm still on holiday (through tomorrow), I was able to oblige rather quickly this time around. I've got at least one more chapter left to write in this oddly linear collection, so if you want to read it, you'll have to let me know. I must say, this chapter is one of my favorites so far because I love Steve-and-Danny-banter and I've been waiting (smirk) to try my hand at some. I hope I was able to do it some semblance of justice! Enjoy! Yoroshikuonegaishimasu!


Waiting

"Did you even think about ringing the doorbell? Yeah, that's the little white button, right next to the doorknob you used to let yourself in. You know if I hadn't seen dozens of doorbells when I was searching for a crappy little apartment to live in I'd start to think that doorbells were another amenity of civilization that was forgotten when this god forsaken island was settled. But no! It's just a McGarrett thing. You can't be bothered to maintain a working doorbell, so it's completely inconceivable that somebody else might want you to use theirs for its intend purpose."

McGarrett had his free hand in the air "Fine!" he said and made his way back toward the door, ostensibly to open it and ring the doorbell.

"Stop! Just stop. Get in here," Danny continued with an exaggerated sigh. "It's already a lost cause. You're completely untrainable. Lab rats are more trainable than you. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's the lab rat specialty right there- pressing buttons!"

They'd gone through variations on this conversation every day for the past week right around quitting-time, when Steve faithfully stopped in at his grounded partner's sorry excuse for an apartment. The fact that it was now mid-morning on Saturday seemed to have changed very little, except possibly that Danny was slightly more irascible than usual.

Steve had yet to actually use the doorbell.

Danny had yet to fail to complain about it.

Steve counted this as a good thing.

He shrugged as he came in with a box under one arm, walking over to the table where Danny sat going over some paperwork.

With one arm in a cast, one leg in some brace-like contraption and currently propped up on a corner of the pull-out couch-bed, and a number of bandages still visible in the terrain of the loose t-shirt he was wearing, Danny Williams had certainly looked better, but compared to the ghostly figure hovering between life and death in a hospital bed only a few weeks before, this Danny Williams looked ready to take on the world ...again.

"You're just missing the positive reinforcement." Steve said by way of explanation. "Something like this." He nodded toward his burden.

"Are those donuts?" Danny asked, suddenly more alert as he caught a whiff of whatever was in the box.

"That depends," the other man answered, setting the box down squarely in front of his partner and settling himself down in the nearest chair. "Are you supposed to be allowed to eat donuts yet?" He asked.

Danny threw back the lid and grinned, pulling out a very promising jelly-filled specimen. "Absolutely not!" He proclaimed, and bit into it with gusto.

"Then no," McGarrett said with a small frown. "Those are...pudding cups."

Danny went on enjoying himself, "God, this is so good!" he enthused as he took another savory bite of jelly-filled donut. His fervor was so great it seemed possible that he was addressing a deity.

A quick thought, however made him round on McGarrett, "If one on these has pineapple in it you had better take it out of this box right now or, so help me, you're gonna be wearing it all over that," he gestured at McGarrett (with his donut-filled hand, since the other was out of commission) struggling to describe Steve's lack of outfit, "weekend t-shirt that is completely indistinguishable from your work-day t-shirts."

Steve held up a finger and cocked his head, about to launch back into the age-old acceptable-work-clothes argument when he paused and decided for once to pick his battles. This was certainly not one that he was going to win today, not with his partner in such fine form already, and, though Danny didn't yet know it, time was of the essence this morning. Instead he gave the detective a meaningful look, reached into the box, plucked out a fairly innocent looking donut, and placed it carefully on a napkin in front of him.

Danny continued to enjoy his breakfast, simultaneously eyeing the offensive pastry as if it were some sort of poisonous snake sitting on his table, and when he reached into the box for another, he took extra care to select one that had not been touching the pineappled monstrosity.

"Did I tell ya the decision came down-" Danny began, as he took a last bite and licked his lips. "I'm not allowed to have Grace again until I can drive?"

Steve just frowned sympathetically, though the answer to that question was, in fact; several times. But he couldn't blame the guy for needing to vent this particular frustration, again.

"Yeah," He looked in utter disgust at his bum leg. "Apparently it's for her safety. If something happened and she needed to go the hospital, or high ground, or a bomb shelter I can't drive her, so it isn't safe." Danny looked like he wanted to hit something, but he refrained, continuing into his rant instead. "You'd think Rachel could spare, maybe, her driver for a little while or something. But, no, that's an unreasonable request from a guy who just wants to spend a few hours with his daughter to stave off the life-sucking monotony of being stranded in this pit for an as-yet undetermined number of eons."

"But you're doing alright, right?" Steve was trying to sound positive. "Keeping busy?"

"Oh, yeah, sure, I've been 'keeping busy." His partner said mockingly. "I mean, I've cleaned this dump and trashed it again half dozen times." His gesture was one-armed, but no less expansive, and Steve did notice that several of the archaeological layers of human detritus seemed to have vanished.

"I have been sleeping 14 hours a day like some kind of hibernating animal." Having had to wake his partner from a deep sleep on at least one occasion, Steve tended to agree with that analogy, though he wisely kept his amusement to himself.

"I've been eating their vile hospital delivery food." He waved a hand at the small pile of picked-over boxes of unappetizing-looking substances. Steve failed to contain his wince at the sight—'vile' was a generous description.

"I've done more backlogged paperwork than we ever even had cases," He scowled meaningfully at McGarrett, "in this whole state." Steve shrugged and gave an uncomfortable smile.

"I've even been trying to talk to Gracie online with this thing," he punched the monitor of a somewhat ancient looking desktop computer, "But according to Chin, her "firewall" is convinced I'm a sexual predator or something." He scowled in disgust and turned toward his the somewhat disused-looking set of weights he kept in one corner of the room. "I've been working the parts of me that I'm allowed to work," he shook his head in disdain, "And I've been 'rehab'ing the parts that I'm allowed to 'rehab'." He turned toward a newer looking piece of equipment in the other corner of the room. Steve's eyes steeled as he recognized it, but Danny, thankfully, didn't notice.

"And remember I told you they were gonna send a PT over here twice a week? Well, yesterday was the first time, and I find out- I got a dude! How unlucky can I possibly be! And...I really don't want to say this, but I think he, you know..."

"Who, Javier?" Steve cut in.

"Yeah!" Danny jabbed him with a hand, "What, you know him?" the detective frowned. This seemed very unlikely.

Steve shrugged, "I just overheard him at the nurses' station the other day in the hospital. You're right, though. The kid's really into you. Said something about maybe 'getting lucky.'" Steve trailed off and Danny blanched noticeably, momentarily at a loss for words. Steve took a beat and then grinned broadly, "s a joke, man."

"God, I hate you so much." He mimed choking McGarrett with his good hand, "I was halfway through working out how I was going to make death-by-hospital-spork-to-the-forehead look like an accident."

Steve raised an eyebrow and nodded approvingly.

"Seriously though," Danny said with a sigh, sinking a little further into the table. "I've been doing all this stuff, going through the motions, 'keeping busy,' waiting for something to give...and nothing ever does." Even the hand he was gesturing with seemed ready to give up. "I'm bored out of my mind here, man. You know what I mean?"

He looked up to see that Steve's eyes were distant, unreadable.

"Naw, of course you don't." Danny sighed. "You're the Super SEAL. Bullets and knife wounds mean nothing to you. You bounce right back and keep on going like a freaking energizer bunny." He put an elbow on the table and ran his fingers through his hair.

Then he heard a drag and clunk, and looked up to see that Steve had pulled a chair over and thunked a booted foot down onto it.

Danny was about to protest the abuse of what passed for furniture in his apartment, but then stopped as his partner rolled up his pant leg and began tracing a line through the hair on his calf. Barely noticeable, but distinct when you were really looking, a jagged scar ran along the side of the man's leg and curled up past the knee. It was accompanied by several straighter lines and small circular scars, doubtless the result of some fairly intensive surgery.

Danny looked up at Steve, the question held in his eyes.

"Al-Anbar province, Iraq, 2006. IED." He proceeded with deadly calm. "I was in the hospital for a month, at a rehab center for 3 more." He looked thoughtful, letting his words sink in. "In all that time I didn't see anyone." He said grimly, "Not Dad, not Mary Anne… Cat wasn't even in the picture yet. The remaining members of my team were updated about my status, I found out later. But they were already reassigned. I wasn't told where." He blew out a breath and leaned back, dropping his leg back to the ground. "When I went into the service I didn't understand how it was that so many guys got injured and ended up head cases." He looked hard at Danny. "But after those four months..." He nodded slowly at his partner. "I really did."

Danny sat back uncomfortably. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, blew out a breath, then finally laid a hand on the table. "I'm sorry." was all he could say, "I... I didn't know."

McGarrett spread his hands apart. "You're not supposed to know." He said firmly. "You're Danny Williams. You're a good cop, a great father, and the best partner a guy could ask for. This," he gestured to Danny's general state of patched-together-ness, "is not something you're supposed to know."

They exchanged a long look; something like a profound apology and its unconditional acceptance happened completely without words.

"Which is why I'm breaking you out." Steve stood up and pushed the chair back in one quick motion, slamming both hands on the table, startling Danny to no small degree. "We're getting out of this pit- right now!" He extended a hand toward Danny's good one.

Danny blinked for a moment looking from the hand to Steve and back again, trying to determine if the SEAL was serious. "Are you insane?" He demanded.

"Naw, man, come on! It's a gorgeous Saturday out there. Fresh ocean breeze, warm Hawaiian sun- it's exactly what you need!" Steve cuffed him lightly on the shoulder and then proffered the hand once again.

Danny had to admit to himself, just for a moment, that that prospect sounded awfully good, but another aspect of the plan quickly brought itself to his attention, "What I don't need is your maniac driving! I did not survive all of this," he gestured vaguely to himself, "just to die speeding over the edge of some god forsaken jungle cliff."

"No cliffs, no speeding: I swear!" Steve promised, grabbing Danny's hand and hauling him (with remarkable care) to his feet. "Scout's honor!" he said, making a quick hand sign that looked more Vulcan than anything else before snatching the crutch from the wall and handing it over to his partner.

Danny pulled a face, "What kinda scout were you, anyway?" Still, he took up the crutch put it under his good arm, leaning on it experimentally.

Steve just gave him one of those infuriatingly knowing grins but didn't answer. He waited to see that Danny was hobbling steadily before turning to grab meds, donuts, and other amenities and making for the door.

Danny paused to snatch his wallet and put it in his shorts pocket and Steve caught him looking longingly at a short-sleeve button-down on a wire hanger near the door.

"Seriously?" Steve asked with a skeptical look.

"What!" Danny was defensive, "Is it too much to ask that I be allowed to feel human for a few hours today? This''ll just take a sec..." He reached for the shirt over the crutch and was in clear danger of becoming unbalanced when Steve raised a hand.

"Ok, ok!" he said, putting down his small armload and snatching the shirt before his partner could bring himself to accidental harm. In one smooth movement he had Danny's good arm through one shirtsleeve and had draped the other side of the shirt over the shoulder with the sling. "Now are we good?" He asked impatiently, reclaiming his load and opening the door.

It took Danny a moment regain his cool after having just been dressed like an oversized doll, and he was about object but Steve just nodded at the door, "You can mess with it in the car." He said, trying to get his partner moving.

Danny gimped a few steps forward then stopped, looking at the sleeve, then at McGarrett, "This is inside-out!" he complained in disbelief.

"In the car." Steve repeated, then paused. "It is?" He looked down at it. "Huh!" He was genuinely surprised. "Why'd you hang it up inside-out?" He asked, curiously.

"I didn't, genius!" Danny said loudly, struggling to punctuate his words with his hands when one was tied up and the other occupied with the crutch. "You clearly have some kind of dark side power that does weird things to perfectly normal articles of clothing. I'm not even going to ask what happened to the tie that was hanging with this." He finally hobbled over to the door.

Steve gave his best sinister smile as he turned to close the door behind them and noticed the tie in question lying where it had landed on the other side of the room. "That's good," he said with a nod, "because that tie was never gonna be part of today's plans."

Danny huffed in disapproval and began to carefully negotiate the several steps between his front door and ground level. Steve watched surreptitiously, and there were a few moments where he wanted to intervene, but he refrained. Hovering would only serve to further annoy and humiliate his friend.

"There is only one reason," began Danny after regaining solid ground, "that I'm leaving the tie alone." He paused, putting a finger up, "A: It is Saturday and I am about as off-duty as it is humanly possible to be. And B:" he put up another finger, "I can't tie a tie one-handed and all evidence points to the fact that you have never successfully tied a tie in your entire life." He continued on toward the Camero.

"That was two." Said Steve.

"Two what?"

"Two reasons." he supplied thoughtfully, "actually, possibly three or four, depending."

Danny stopped and fumed silently for a moment as Steve struggled to contain a smirk. Then in an unprecedented move the detective seemed to master his anger and continued along at his labored gait.

"You know I worked a case a few years ago where a guy bludgeoned another guy to death with a crutch." Danny noted conversationally.

"Yeah?" Steve said with a smile. "How'd that go?"

"Well, the investigation was pretty quick." Danny replied. "The death? Apparently that was long and painful."

Steve nodded, "I'll keep that in mind."

"You do that."

They finally reached the car and Danny leaned heavily against the passenger side, slightly winded from the exertion.

"This is still insane." He said, leaning his head back and squinting into the sun, surprised at how incredibly good it felt on his face.

"Maybe," Steve conceded. "But good insane. Besides, I've got a surprise waiting for you." He nodded at the car.

"You already gave me the donuts." Danny reminded him sourly.

"Not the donuts. Better than donuts."

"You've got something in here that's better than donuts?" He gazed incredulously at the side of the vehicle.

"Wait for it." Steve looked alarmingly self-satisfied. He gave the hood of the Camero two thumps with his palm.

In flash of pigtails and sparkly barrettes a very familiar face popped out of the open back-seat window.

"DANNO!"