Chapter 3
Not much action in this one but there is a lot of worry.
So very much appreciate the reviews you lovely readers have posted. After I've submitted a new chapter they help to keep me from hiding under the bed like not-so-ninja cat when garbage trucks are outside. It's also hard to curl into the fetal position in such a cramped space.
This chapter was betaed by the very patient and long-suffering SPNgrn. Many years from now, after she's gone to the big chocolate shop in the sky, she will no doubt be canononized.
Disclaimer: It's not my fault, honest. In any case, I still don't get paid for this.
*5-0*5-0*5-0*5-0*5-0*5-0*5-0* Hawaii 5-0*5-0*5-0*5-0*5-0*5-0*5-0*
The Piñata Theory
Using lights but no siren, the ambulance rolls along baking asphalt toward Queens Medical Center. Its passenger, lying quietly with eyes closed, holds gauze to his nose and shivers despite the heat.
His partner sits on the seat parallel to the wheeled cot and scowls in concern as he watches the EMT take readings and note them on forms fastened to a clipboard.
The oft used template; insistence that he's 'good' and in no need of medical attention, (much less a ride in an ambulance), had not been employed. But what worries Danny most is that his friend is so passive. Without bothering to open his eyes Steve is compliantly responding to the standard questions: 'Does anything hurt? Can you feel this? Can you rate your pain on a scale of one to ten?'
Who's stolen Rambo and replaced him with this weirdly cooperative lookalike? wonders Five-0's second in command as he observes the interaction between Steve and the EMT.
Though this new willingness has made it much easier than the usual struggle to get Steve to agree to medical care, it's made Danny very much uneasy. His friend's face had already been etched with fatigue before they'd even gotten to the fairgrounds and now it's paper pale and sheened with sweat.
Too tired to put up a fight, Steve goes along with whatever is asked. He doesn't have the energy left to put up any resistance. The kids are safe, the suspect has been caught and everyone can take a break for a few minutes. Though he's still queasy, he's thankful that dry heaves like a gun clicking on empty have finally ceased.
Allan Taamu, the EMT in attendance, is also thankful that no upchucking appears imminent. As a first responder he'd seen blood and gore aplenty, up to and including missing body parts, but he is sorely tried when it comes to patients puking – on him or anything else. At times it would threaten to trigger his own round of retching but, so far, he's managed not to go there. His coworkers have been relentless in their teasing about 'sympathy puking'. For a medical professional the affliction is mortifying.
Taamu notes the readouts and frowns. His patient's pulse is a bit fast for someone just lying quietly on a gurney; it's slightly irregular as well.
Detective Williams, who'd also been in his care a time or two over the last couple of years, sits at his elbow, closely observing. The situation isn't unusual. If it was McGarrett being transported Williams accompanied him and if it was Williams then the reverse was true. Five-0 is ohana and its team members watch over each other. No one ever goes to the hospital alone.
"That nosebleed letting up any?" asks the medic.
"Not yet." replies his patient who'd opened his eyes to blink tiredly from behind the wad of gauze he held to his face.
Taking the bundle of absorbent material that had nearly soaked through, Taamu quickly pressed another into Steve's hand. The bleeding should have stopped by now.
"Thanks." rasped McGarrett as he quickly applied the new compress.
He didn't think he'd been hit in the face; at least he didn't remember it happening. The nosebleed had begun just after he'd finished ralphing and now, even with his head slightly elevated, he'd been swallowing blood running down the back of his throat for the past several minutes. It's making him queasy all over again.
"Uhh, Allan?" asked McGarrett, his voice muffled by the padding, "I'd better turn on my side or I'm gonna puke in your bus. I know it's your worst nightmare. Don't wanna do that to you."
Jeeze! Does everyone know?! thought Taamu as he hurriedly loosened the straps securing his patient to the gurney. After lowering the cot flat, with Williams' assistance he helped his nauseous patient roll onto his side.
The detective worriedly looked on as the EMT refastened the straps then quickly grabbed an EmBag from the rack behind him, (just in case).
"Normally I'd have you lean forward and pinch the sides of your nose together but that's not a good idea right now. You don't seem too steady yet and I don't want you pitching off the gurney." said Taamu
"I thought my nose had stopped bleeding for good this morning but I guess not." volunteered Steve without thinking of the ramifications of making such a statement in front of his much too vigilant partner.
"What do you mean this morning?" asked Danny; his tone one of suspicion.
"Umm . . . just a little when I was in the shower. It was nothing." mumbled Steve.
"Yeah, uh huh." said the detective, worry lines on his forehead deepening as the needle on his McGarrett Bullshit Detection Meter began to inch up.
"Commander, how often do you get these nosebleeds?" asked the medic as he pulled a pen from his shirt pocket and reached for the clipboard next to him.
Crap! I've probably busted myself! thinks Steve as two sets of eyes peer expectantly down at him. Without answering the question he exclaims, "Adrenaline's an amazing thing huh? That bastard must have popped me in the face, but with all the commotion I didn't notice."
Taamu makes a note on the form and barely manages not to roll his eyes. He knows he's not going to get a straight answer. He's treated the guy before and is very well aware his patient isn't above deception if he thinks it will shorten any time spent under medical care.
"Steven, I know you think you've cleverly managed to distract us but unlike you we don't have the attention span of a puppy that's lapped up a gallon of Red Bull. You didn't answer the question."
Taamu smiles at what is probably the start of one of the pair's infamous squabbles but checking McGarrett's pulse once again, the EMT's face sobered.
Taamu's tightened expression didn't escape the detective who murmured, "I didn't see him get hit in the face."
Before they could press further for a truthful answer, the ambulance was backing up to the doors of the ER entrance.
They'd arrived at the hospital in decent time especially since there'd been no need for sirens. At least no one was actually gushing blood or threatening to stop breathing on this trip, thought Danny as he relaxed just the tiniest bit because he knew his partner would be in competent hands here at Queens.
Steve was offloaded and wheeled through the Emergency Room doors while his friend took care of the paperwork. Since he'd been part of Five-0, the Jersey detective had performed this task so many times he knew Steve's, Chin's, and Kono's info by heart: blood type, allergies, last tetanus shot, etc. Lou had, so far, managed to stay out of harm's way but being part of McGarrett World, it probably wouldn't be long before his stats would be memorized as well. Danny didn't know how it had come about but long ago he'd somehow been nominated Five-0's mother hen. He thanked God that at least he was only Steve's medical proxy. Making decisions for a guy who'd been wheeled into the ER unconscious on more than one occasion could be harrowing and a job not to be wished upon his worst enemy.
Completing the forms in record time he signed them with a flourish, handed them back to the admissions nurse, and nodded for her to buzz him through the emergency room doors. They swung open with the familiar nerve-grating sound and he strode down the wide corridor off of which branched individual glass-fronted emergency bays. He was almost to the end of it when he heard Steve's voice coming from behind the curtain of a cubicle on the right.
"No, I'm not staying so I don't have to take off my clothes! Just give me a couple aspirin and let me get outta here!"
"Commander, for the third time, you're not going anywhere!" responded an exasperated female voice, "You know you have to stay until the doctor has done his examination . . . but first, get out of your clothes!"
"Steven", greeted Danny as he parted the privacy curtains, "Just do like the lady says. Be a good boy and strip."
The harried nurse had already taken her reluctant patient's blood pressure, established a line, and clamped a pulse-ox thingamabob on his finger but was making no headway in getting him to cooperate with anything more. The precautionary bag of saline hung from a hook above the bed, its tubing attached to a needle in the back of Steve's left hand as he lay glaring at her in an obvious standoff.
Danny paused to silently survey his partner, still pale as a fish belly, and scowling back at him from a semi upright position on the narrow bed. Dark red splotches stained the white cotton T-shirt he'd refused to shed and he's still wearing dirt smudged cargoes; bits of straw clinging here and there. At least they'd gotten him to remove his boots . . . or most likely had done it for him.
"Danny, I don't need to be here and you know it!" groused Five-0's leader, his eyes nearly the only part of his face visible behind the giant compress he held to his nose.
"Ahh" exclaimed a not very amused detective as he approached the side of the bed. "I was wondering how long it would take you to get there. You've reached it I see."
"Get where? Reached what?" demanded Steve as he pulled the gauze away to check if the bleeding had stopped. An immediate trickle of red answered the question.
"You know. Get to the part where you become an uncooperative asshole." snorted the blonde, "Just lose the ensemble Steven so you can get this over with. I wanna get home sometime before sunup."
"No one's keebing you here." snapped Steve, the angry tone mitigated by the lack of ability to pronounce the word correctly because he couldn't breathe through the thick pad he held to his nose.
The blonde scrubbed his hands over his face and took a deep breath, "Just cooperate wouldja? You know you're not getting out of here until the doctor releases you."
"Danny . . ." began McGarrett before he was cut off.
"I know shyness isn't your issue 'cause you've been naked in public more times than a friggin' pole dancer." interrupted the annoyed detective with an exaggerated description of his friend's OCD habit of changing his shirt in the middle of his office. Danny had always thought that for someone who surely must have been accustomed to situations in which a bath or change of clothing may not have been an option for several days; the guy is as finicky as a cat.
Everyone on the team had seen their boss shirtless more than once when he'd returned from the field sweaty or grimy and had switched out a grubby T-shirt for one of the clean ones from his stash in his desk drawer. On occasion they'd seen even more bare skin when Steve had gone into the water to retrieve evidence or even a suspect who'd been foolish enough to try to swim his way to freedom.
"You are also very much aware of the S.O.P. in this situation. The one with which I have become much too familiar since having been dragooned into being your partner. It goes like this: You wait to be examined by an actual doctor with an actual medical degree who then can declare you fit to leave the hospital . . . or not
"Danny . . ."
"Just shut up already! This isn't the supermarket, Steven; there is no self-checkout here! You stay put until the doc O.K.'s your release. I doubt he's even seen you yet, has he?"
Though it was only the middle of the week and wasn't yet sundown, the ER appeared to be at capacity. The detective knew that arrival by ambulance usually gives one a bit of priority but with only dizziness and a nosebleed; Five-0's leader wasn't the highest one on the triage totem pole. It would probably be a while before he'd be seen by a doctor.
Choosing to ignore his partner's admonition Steve pulled away the gauze to say, "I've got to get out of here because there's work to do. We have the lead in this case and the suspect needs to be interrogated about that boy up in Makaha." Blood dripped onto his T-shirt before he'd finished the sentence. "Shit!" he muttered as he swiped at it futilely with the gauze.
"That can all be handled without you being there." reminded Danny, his usual scant supply of patience now wearing very, very, thin. "You do know that you've got extremely competent people working for you . . . right?"
"Well yeah, of course," said McGarrett, still blotting at his nose. "But do you even know whose custody he's in right now? Ours or HPD's? Maybe they've already started an interrogation. We need to be there." said Steve sitting up in preparation to swinging his legs off the bed before the exasperated nurse pushed him back down. It didn't take as much effort as one would think.
"Well, for his safety, just be glad it isn't me doing the interrogating." supplied the detective as he noted the ease with which a woman weighing not much more than a hundred-pounds handled someone nearly twice her size. "It's being handled just fine SuperSEAL. Kono called to say they've stashed him in the blue room to let him marinate for a while. You don't need to be there right now so just chill."
Steve looked as though he was going to launch another protest but apparently thinking the better of it, sighed tiredly then leaned back on the narrow bed. All fight seemed to have suddenly left him.
"Just be happy Steven. Your team is taking care of business. If I wasn't here with you, I'd be letting the bastard know what I think of what he's done, or correction, allegedly done. I wish I had my hands around his neck right now."
"You and a lot of other people." replied Steve as he pulled the gauze away again and sniffed wetly. Blood immediately trailed onto his upper lip so he clamped it back in place. "That only reinforces the fact that I have to get out of here to find out if he was responsible for abducting that boy."
"Kalakaua's on it babe. I'll guarantee she'll get an answer from the motherfucker . . ." began the detective. He was interrupted by someone saying "Knock, knock" before a slight pause and parting of the curtains.
"What motherfucker?" asked the dark-haired woman who entered the exam cubicle, a stethoscope slung around her neck. "I'm Dr. Farina" she smiled. From the slotted holder at the end of the bed she plucked up the forms that had been handed off by the EMT's.
Danny, his face flushing muttered, "Umm, sorry for the language."
Steve, having propped himself up on one elbow said through the gauze, "You know, it's kind of cute when you blush Danny,"
Wiliams shot his partner a glare before backing away from the bed so the doctor and a young guy who'd followed her in wearing a blue smock and carrying an assortment of medical gear could have access to their patient.
"I see that you were involved in an altercation of some sort?" asked Dr. Farina who gestured toward the bloody compress and the bruise on the SEAL's forehead.
Before Steve could reply, Danny spoke up, "Yeah, you could call it an altercation or you could call it an attempt at impersonating a guided missile."
"Pray tell." smiled the doctor as she motioned for Steve to sit up.
He did so with a wince and looked as though he was about to plop back down again. Danny quickly took a step forward to reach out to steady him.
The tech in the smock, whose name tag identified him as T. Colton of Hematology, pulled over a rolling tray from the corner of the room. He unfolded something that looked like a thick paper towel over the tray's surface then laid out various tubes with color-coded stoppers upon it along with the other tools of his trade.
Clarifying his statement, the detective said, "Our fearless friend here, dropped from a roof onto a suspect who was attempting to flee."
The doctor's dark brows rose in surprise but she continued her exam; lifting Steve's T-shirt to place her stethoscope against his back.
"It was only a shed roof not a . . . ", began Steve in his defense
Before he could explain further, the doctor interrupted him with a sentence that wasn't really a question. "You didn't get these bruises just today, did you?"
Danny, puzzled as to what she was referring to, walked around to the other side of the bed so that he could see what she was looking at.
"Shit!" he muttered, then at full volume, "What the hell Steven!"
Several contusions, their colors ranging from yellow to purple to nearly black, littered Steve's back.
"I only had that one on my hip bone and um . . . my knees and maybe a few others. If you're looking at anything else, then . . ." his voice trailed off unsurely.
"You look like someone used you for a friggin' piñata!" exclaimed Danny; worry making him even louder.
"Commander McGarrett, you have quite extensive bruising on your back and I suspect elsewhere as well. You're saying you don't know how it got there?"
"Well, I guess it could have happened a couple days ago. Is it really that bad?"
"Your partner's piñata theory could almost be plausible. Now, please remove the rest of your clothing so that I can see if there's anything else I need to be aware of."
Still grumbling, Steve reluctantly pulled off his shirt with Danny's assistance. Then, with the gauze still pressed to his nose, one-handed, and with a warning glance at his partner he undid his belt.
"Just get over it! Your virtue is safe for chrissakes!" snorted Danny as he pulled at the cuffs of the trousers to help Steve remove them.
"Detective, you can wait out in the hallway if you like." said the doctor looking as though she was trying to suppress a smile. The tech didn't even look up.
"He can stay." sighed Steve as he lay back preparing to shimmy the rest of the way out of his cargoes.
"Doc, we've been together so long he hasn't got anything I haven't already seen." snarked the detective.
Both looked up at the smirking blonde; Steve with a 'what the hell' expression, the doctor with an amused one.
McGarrett began, "Dr. Farina, he's just being a smartass. We're not . . ."
"I know." laughed the medic, "Don't worry. I understand your connection." she said, soothing her patient's annoyance. "You guys are well-known here at Queens. Actually, I'm surprised we haven't run into one another before now."
Steve looked relieved it wouldn't have to be explained for the hundredth time that their partnership is a work partnership and not the other kind. Danny looked pleased with himself as he stood with arms crossed. Usually, the shoe was on the other foot with Steve being secure enough to let it pass while Danny had issues with people thinking they're a married couple.
Gesturing toward the tech who is now poised like Dracula over his latest victim, Dr. Farina said, "Tommy is going to draw what's going to seem like a lot of blood. Actually, after seeing that bruising, I'm going to request additional tests. I'll be back in a moment."
Turning to Danny she said, "Make sure your friend finishes stripping and is in a gown before I return."
"Crap!" muttered her patient
*5-0*5-0*5-0*5-0*5-0*5-0*5-0* Hawaii 5-0*5-0*5-0*5-0*5-0*5-0*5-0*
Following chapters will pick up the pace a little and there may even be a bit of 'bodice ripping', (though it will never venture beyond PG). I'm much too easily embarrassed to write anything overly naughty. I'm way better at blowing things up than . . . umm . . . nevermind.
Next update on Sunday. Reviews, as always, are yearned for.
