Danny felt entirely too familiar with Emergency Rooms. He was freezing, shaking, panicked, trying to breathe through the pain of simply trying to get air in and out of his lungs, and wishing he was unconscious. At least the oxygen mask had been replaced by a nasal cannula, which was not great, but a definite improvement from the mask, which gave him claustrophobia every time.

When he saw Dr. Cornett enter his room, he was both a tiny bit relieved and even more scared. Cornett was not just a doctor capable of handling just about any emergency, he was also a skilled surgeon who had operated on him twice, and Danny trusted him, but thought twice was plenty.

"Hello, Danny, I'm Dr. Isaac Cornett, in case you forgot" said the soothing, compassionate voice of the doctor. He put a hand on Danny's shoulder as he shook his hand, squeezing firmly but not painfully. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I was hoping to not see you again so soon."

Danny scrunched his face into something between a grin and a grimace. "Don't take this personally, but ditto."

The doctor grinned, and patted Danny's shoulder. "No offense taken. Okay, I've been filled in on your condition, and all X-rays and tests already run. Has your anxiety lessened any, or are we still at 15 on the one-to-ten scale?"

"Um, maybe down to a 9.8," replied Danny, responding to the doctor's very comforting manner. If he had to be seen by an ER doc, this was the one he would choose.

"We are making progress."

Danny asked hesitantly, "My liver? Is it..?"

Dr. Cornett did not hesitate with his answer, but his words were gentle. "There is deep bruising where you landed on the IV pole's base, and we are concerned your liver and kidney may be damaged. There is some blood in your urine, and the amount is not dangerously high, but has increased slightly even since you were first brought back in. Normally, we would do several scans, but considering the recent liver donation, Dr. Emmet and I think it might be best if we took a look. It means another surgery. We would rather be cautious than wait and have that prove to be a mistake."

"Slow night in the OR?" asked Danny, and he could see the smile in the eyes of Dr. Cornett, hear it in his voice.

"With you in the hospital? Not a chance."

Danny almost grinned, but then nodded. "What about my head? Wouldn't a surgery be risky?"

"All surgery carries some risk, of course, but you do not have a concussion or swelling - just some stitches at your hairline. You might have a thin scar, which your girlfriend will love."

Danny laughed, then grimaced. When he had been stabbed badly in his lower left side, almost exactly a year previously, it had been by his girlfriend's vengeful, violent ex-husband. Melissa had been the one to rush him to Tripler. Dr. Cornett had been his surgeon for that, and had met Melissa. There was no way, however, that Danny was going to explain that Melissa was back in New York, taking some "space" from their relationship. She had been gone two months, one week, three days, and 17 hours.

"Oh, well, that's...nice. So scars are chick magnets?" Danny swallowed, his anxiety less, but still hovering around an 8. "So give me the rundown on the surgery you want to do."

Danny listened closely, and nodded afterwards. Cornett wanted to go in through the original incision for the liver transplant, since several sutures had popped anyway and had to be repaired. A laparoscope would be used to see if there was anything to worry about in his liver and kidney area, to find the origin of the bleeding and fix it. Then they would fix the popped sutures and send Danny to recovery, and barring complications, he should be in his room by shift change.

Danny was relieved it was not going to be major. Probably. "Okay. Uhm. Just one thing..."

Dr. Cornett asked "what?" with a lift of his eyebrows.

"Um. Could you, would you wait to put the mask thingie on my face till after I'm out cold?"

The doctor's laugh reached his eyes. "We do try to accommodate our patient's requests. I think we can do that." He picked up the chart, wrote something, and patted Danny's arm.

"Doc, I am adding you to my Christmas card list."

Both men smiled.

An hour later, Danny was in surgery.

Twenty minutes after Danny was wheeled off to the ER, Steve was deep in guilt, his pillow was damp on either side of his head from the tears he had not tried to check. He didn't even feel embarrassed when the nice nurse who had helped Danny with his panic attack came into the room with his night medication. It was a syringe, which she administered into his IV line. "You need to sleep," she said, kindly, and pulled his blanket into place and generally saw to his comfort.

"Any word?" Steve asked.

"Not yet, but I will make sure you are told as soon as you wake up."

"I need to call-" Steve began, his words slurring. "...to call..." He closed his eyes, and his body relaxed.

The nurse watched his vital signs slip into those indicating sleep, and sighed. She wiped his face, switched out his pillows from spares in the closet. She turned to Danny's bed and made short work pulling all the sheets off, leaving the room. A little later, someone came in and remade the bed, cleaned the floor of sticky pineapple residue and blood, and left. Steve slept through it all.

Steve woke slowly, and realized almost at once that it was morning, and he needed the bathroom. He had not gone the night before. That made him think of Danny's fall, and immediately he looked at Danny's bed. It had felt so lonely in the room after he had been wheeled out. He was deeply relieved to see Danny in the bed, fast asleep, with the only outward sign of his fall the line of stitches right at his hairline, about an inch and a half's worth of very finely placed stitches, the kind used to keep scarring to a minimum. Bruising around the area was minimal, and there didn't seem to be anything else but the slightest swelling.

That was all Steve could see, except that Danny's vitals seemed strong. He had a nasal cannula to help keep his oxygen levels up, but otherwise he looked like Danny, sleeping. Sleeping deeply. The blankets were neat, not the wreck Danny usually left them in. Steve wanted to hug him! He settled for reaching over and squeezing Danny's hand before beeping the nurse. He wasn't allowed yet to make a bathroom run without someone to keep him from taking the kind of fall Danny had. Except all the fruit bits had been picked up.

Steve instantly felt the cold grip of guilt. He had a lot of thinking to do, and wanted to know how Danny was doing.

After the nurse came in, she helped him and then Dr. Cornett poked his head into the room. "Doc," whispered Steve, pointing to Danny. "How is my partner?"

"I will just take a quick look and let you know."

Danny did not awaken, and after the brief exam, Cornett led Steve out into the hall and they each sat in one of the pair of chairs outside an empty room. "His liver is fine, healing, though bruised slightly. What we did find was a very small tear on his right kidney, which we repaired easily. Already his tests are good, so, all things considered, his recovery is set back a couple of days, maybe three, but nothing worse than that. He has bruised ribs on the right, possibly a hairline fracture, but nothing we are concerned about."

Steve was relieved, so much so that he just nodded and grabbed the doctor's hand to shake, finally managing to whisper, "I was really worried."

The doctor nodded. "Good friends always are. Take care of that half a liver he donated to you. That was a fairly risky surgery he went through, but he waived all the risks and insisted we go through with it. Since his health was generally good, we - "

Steve stopped him. "What, doc? What do you mean? Nobody told me anything but that he donated half his liver to me, and saved my life. Was he at risk?"

Doctor Cornett spoke quietly. "Had the need not been so great, and time so short, we would have refused him as a donor based on the injuries he sustained landing the plane. Broken ribs, bruising, and emotional factors. But he insisted, and based on the judgment of two surgeons, he was deemed fit enough, barely. We took extra precautions during the surgery and had additional personnel standing by in case he showed any signs of distress. But he came through just fine, and I'm told the first thing he did after regaining consciousness was to ask after you."

"...I didn't know any of this. When you say 'distress,' are you saying he could he have died?"

Doctor Cornett responded honestly. "The possibility of death during surgery with a donor who has recently undergone trauma to the extent that he had is elevated." He sighed. "I cleared him for the surgery because I could see his emotional well being would be severely compromised if you died because we did not let him donate."

"Who was his surgeon?"

"I was."

Steve sucked in a shaky breath. He stuck out his hand, and Cornett took it. The handshake was lengthy. "Doc, thanks for taking such good care of him."

Cornett smiled and nodded. "Now you take good care of him." And he patted Steve's side. "And yourself, too."

"I will."

He stood up and pulled out a business card, then wrote something on it. "Try to stay out of my ER, both of you. But if either of you or a loved one needs a doctor, call on me. I get attached to my patients."

He looked in on Danny again before he left to continue his rounds. As he walked away, Steve looked at what Cornett had written on his card: he had written his private phone number, and, "No discounts for repeaters."

Steve laughed, sighed, and went back into his and Danny's room, just in time for Danny to awaken, pale lashes fluttering open on pale blue eyes.