1 Week Post-Surgery

It had been a week since Steve had been released from the hospital but the pit inside Danny's stomach would not subside. He still couldn't remember a lot of what went on in the hospital, a lot of it seemed like a blur. But the thing he could remember were the panic attacks he had had as he waited to find out if Steve had made it through surgery.

Six hours. Steve was in surgery for six hours; the longest six hours of Danny's life. Not only was he the reason that Steve was in there, but he had also had to make a decision that could have possibly killed his best friend on the operating table. So when the surgeon came out telling them that Steve's surgery was a success and that they had removed the bullet with no complications, Danny had collapsed into a chair, thanking any higher being that would listen. Kono had started crying too as the cousins made their way to either side of Danny, telling him that everything was going to be okay.

How wrong they would soon find out they were.

2 Months Post-Surgery

Nightmares had been keeping Danny up for weeks. He would wake up almost every night sweating and screaming Steve's name; the horrific events of the alley playing over and over in his mind.

Steve had tried to talk to him a few times but had eventually backed off, knowing that Danny would speak to him when he was ready and willing; for that, Danny was grateful. Danny had also been attending mandatory therapy sessions, which he thought were a complete waste of time at first, but as the sessions progressed, he had realized how important and necessary they were.

He had really thought that he was starting to deal with everything. He was opening up more in therapy and the nightmares had lessened substantially. He felt like he was finally starting to get his feet under him again, that was, until their most recent case.

Steve and Danny had been following up on some leads with their latest case, but when Kono had told them to return to headquarters because they had a new lead, they did just that.

"What do we got?" Steve asked as he pushed open the double doors and made his way over to the cousins, with Danny in tow.

"Lance Markstrom, turns out he was the last guy to see our vic, not Julie as we originally thought."

"Whoa," Danny froze as he looked up at the pic. "Does anyone else see what I'm seeing?"

Chin laughed as he looked over at Danny.

"Steve's doppelganger right, Kono and I thought the same thing."

Steve looked at all of the incredulously.

"He does not look like me."

All three detectives looked over at Steve.

"Okay fine, maybe he looks a little like me, but I am definitely WAY more handsome, his jaw line is not defined," Steve smiled in satisfaction.

"Neither is yours babe," Danny smirked as the cousins laughed.

"You're just jealous Danno."

Danny squinted and locked eyes with his partner.

"And what could I possibly be jealous of, hm?

"Me and my good looks."

Danny scoffed.

"Right, cause of all the things in this world that I could be jealous of, I would choose to be jealous of something that isn't even true."

"You guys really are worse than a married couple," Kono quipped as she shook her head.

Danny laughed and Steve couldn't help but smile as he stared at his partner. The last few weeks had been tough on everyone, especially Danny. The guilt over what he had had to do to Steve had been eating away at him and everyone knew it. But the last few days, Danny had started to act more like his normal self, and for that, Steve was grateful. Steve snapped out of his train of thought as he heard Kono speaking.

"He has a pretty extensive rap sheet, multiple burglaries, multiple assaults, he's out on parole right now."

"Great, thanks Kono," Steve said as he turned to Danny. "Let's go pick this guy up."

*Knock knock*

"Lance Markstrom, this if Five-O, open up."

*Silence*

*Knock knock*

"Markstrom, ope-" Steve was cut off by the sound of a window being smashed.

"He's running!" Steve kicked down the door as Danny ran to the side of the house.

Danny could see Markstrom up ahead and yelled for him to stop.

"Stop! Five-O."

Markstrom didn't stop and instead rounded a corner into a junk yard. Danny slowed down as he entered the junk yard, being vigilant of all the places Markstrom could be hiding.

"There's no way out Lance, just put your gun down and no one has to get hu-" Danny's sentence was cut off as a bullet hit the car frame above his head.

"Shit," Danny ducked.

Just as he did this he could see Markstrom's feet under a truck and with one shot he heard a yelp.

Danny got up and ran over to their downed suspect. As he rounded the corner, gun up, he saw Markstrom lying in a pool of blood. Danny froze; Markstrom looked even more like Steve in person.

Suddenly everything Danny thought that he had been dealing with, everything he thought he had gotten passed, came crashing down around him. He was no longer looking at their suspect; he was looking at his partner, bleeding out in front of him, from a bullet that he had shot.

He had shot Steve again.

As Danny's hands started to shake, his gun began to lower and Markstrom took this opportunity to reach for his own gun, which lay inches from his hand. Danny was so consumed by guilt that he didn't even notice Markstrom's reach, didn't notice how a gun was now pointing right at his chest. Danny was frozen in place, he couldn't move, couldn't react.

Suddenly a gunshot rang out and he snapped out of his trance.

The blood had now reached his shoes as he noticed a new bullet hole in their suspect. Danny looked up as he locked eyes with Steve; the horrified look on his partner's face reaffirming just how badly he had messed up.

Steve and Danny barely spoke for the next few minutes. The coroner came to pick up the body and Steve knew there would be a lot of paper work for this one. But that was the least of his concerns right now. Danny had froze, he had a suspect pinned down, advantage on his side, and he had completely froze. If he hadn't happened to be in the right place at the right time, Danny would be dead right now.

"What the hell happened back there Danny?" Steve finally broke the silence in the car.

"I don't know," Danny said, his voice still shaky from the shock of what had just happened.

"You don't know? What do you mean you don't know?" Steve tried his best to hide his frustration but he couldn't help the anger rising inside him. Danny could have died today and it would've been his own fault.

"I don't know means I don't know Steven!" Danny raised his tone to match that of Steve's as he stared daggers into his partner.

"You could've died today, do you get that?! You froze Danny, and I wanna know why!"

"Back off Steve!"

Steve looked over at Danny and was about to rip into him when he noticed how completely drained his partner looked. He knew his frustration and his worry for Danny was hiding behind the anger he was displaying as he yelled in Danny's face, but he knew that it was only making things worse, only pushing Danny further away from opening up.

"What are you doing?" Danny looked at the gravel road to the side that Steve was pulling on to.

Steve turned the engine off, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and turned to Danny.

"What's going on with you Danny?" This time there was no anger behind the question, just pure, honest, heart-on-the-sleeve concern. "If I didn't get there when I did, you'd be dead right now."

Danny just looked out the window unable and unwilling to make eye contact with Steve.

"Danny, talk to me man."

Danny closed his eyes as the bile rose to his throat.

"Alright, well, we're not going anywhere until you talk to me so it's your choice partner, we can sit here in silence, or you can tell me what's up with you."

Danny knew that Steve wasn't kidding around; he knew that Steve would actually sit there for hours if he had to in order to get him to talk.

After five minutes of contemplation, realizing there was no way around this conversation; Danny finally decided to open up to Steve.

"He looked like you."

Steve turned his gaze to Danny.

"What?" Steve stared intently at his partner and when Danny finally made eye contact Steve was speechless at the amount of anguish and pain in those blue eyes.

"Markstrom, he looked like you."

Steve cocked his head back a little.

"Yeah but what does tha-" Steve stopped mid-sentence as a light bulb went off in his head. Steve closed his eyes in realization.

"Oh Danno."

"I thought it was getting better, I know it was getting better," Danny started, frustration evident in his voice.

Steve sat quietly knowing now that Danny had started talking the flood gates were about to open.

"I barely slept the first few weeks after it happened," Danny swallowed the lump in his throat. "Not for a lack of trying, I tried to sleep, but every time I closed my eyes I was back in that alley, pointing my gun at you, telling you...telling you to take your vest off...shooting you. It played like a loop over and over and over again. I'd see you laying there bleeding out, struggling to breathe. I'd see your shirt covered in blood and the blood left on the pavement after the paramedics had put you onto the stretcher. I couldn't make it stop."

"Danny..." Steve found himself at a loss for words. He had a feeling it was about that but he didn't want to push his partner, wanted to let him deal with it on his own terms.

"But the last two weeks it had gotten better, the nightmares only occurred a few times. I was finally getting some sleep and I thought I was getting passed it. And then we get this case," Danny continued knowing that if he didn't keep going he would completely shut down again. "And Markstrom looked so much like you. I didn't think much of it until he was right in front of me. The minute I had my gun trained on him I was right back in that alley and I didn't see him anymore, I just saw you. I saw you in a pool of blood, I saw my gun being pointed at you...again."

Steve sighed as his expression softened.

"Danny...look man, I get it okay, trust me I do. But you have to stop blaming yourself for what happened in that alley."

Danny shook his head.

"It's not even about blame Steve, I know what Peterson did, I know the position he put me in. But that doesn't change the fact that I shot you...you, my best friend! I can't get those images out of my head. I can't get what I did to you out of my head. I almost killed you, I'm no better than Jenna," Danny shook his head in disgust as he looked out the window.

This was no longer just about Markstrom, this was weeks of pent up guilt spilling over.

Steve swallowed the lump in his throat at the mention of that woman's name. He still had occasional nightmares about North Korea.

"Danny those are two completely different situations."

"How Steve? Huh? How is what I did any better than what Jenna did? She sacrificed you thinking she would get her fiancé back and I...I did the same thing thinking that I would get Grace back. So tell me, how the hell is what I did any different than what Jenna did."

Danny was a mess.

"Well for one, I love Gracie too. I would sacrifice myself any day for her, regardless of if I had a choice or not. If you had told me on the phone that you needed me to meet you in the alley because Peterson wanted you to shoot me in order to get Gracie back, I would've still come. You did the right thing Danny."

Danny looked at his partner and knew that Steve meant every word, and that somehow made him feel worse. Steve willingly gives and gives and has been taken advantage of and lied to more times than Danny could count. Steve was always the sacrifice, always the one who suffered, and it wasn't fair.

"Of course you think I did the right thing, you're always so willing to be the martyr, but it's not fair. It's not fair," Danny shook his head as tears filled his eyes. "You...you're the best person I know Steve, you don't deserve any of this."

Steve nodded.

"You're right Danno, I don't, but neither do you. You think I'm the one who suffered in all this? Look at yourself man, if you want to feel sorry for anyone feel sorry for yourself. Peterson put you through hell, and weeks after everything went down he's still putting you through hell. This is EXACTLY what he wants Danny, he wants to ruin your life, and you're playing right into his hands. He could've got you killed today, don't give him that power."

Danny stared intently at his partner, he had never looked at it that way and he knew Steve was right.

"I'm okay Danno, yea you shot me, but I'm alive, and you know what, so is Grace! How many times have you saved my life Danno, huh? How many times have you had my six? This one situation that was forced on you does not define anything. You're letting him win right now. He's behind bars and he's still winning, imagine the satisfaction he would feel if he knew what happened today."

Danny looked away from Steve and stared out the windshield as he sighed. Steve could never know how he felt, would never know what it felt like to aim a gun at your brother and pull the trigger. But he also knew that Steve was right, he was letting Peterson win by not dealing with what happened, with every nightmare, with every "incident", Peterson was winning, and he'd be damned if he let that happen.

As Steve watched Danny he could see a slight shift in his partner's eyes. Some of the anguish he had seen before seemed to have been replaced by anger.

"You're right, that bastard."

Steve smiled knowing that he was finally getting through to his partner.

"He is a bastard, and he's tortured you enough, it ends now."

Danny looked back at Steve nodding his head. This is what he had needed. No shrink or therapist can ever do what his best friend could do.

Danny took a good hard look at his best friend. Steve was alive and sitting right beside him. Peterson didn't win, and he was never going to.

"But Danno," Steve swallowed, worried how Danny was going to take this next part. "I need you to take some time off. What happened with Markstrom cannot happen again. If it happens again, I might not be there and I can't risk that."

Danny nodded, he knew this was coming, and a part of him was grateful. He still had a lot to deal with and maybe a week or two off wouldn't be the worst thing.

"Beer? My place?"

Steve looked over as a huge grin spread across his face. It was nice to see Danny finally smile a sincere smile.

"Definitely Danno, paper work can wait till tomorrow."

Danny smiled as he looked out the window. For the first time in weeks he felt a little lighter, felt like he could breathe a little easier. Steve was okay, Grace was okay, and he was going to be okay. Danny looked over at Steve; he had no idea how he got so lucky to know someone like Steve, let alone to have such a man as his best friend.

The fact that Peterson had come so close to taking all of that away terrified Danny, but the fact that he had failed gave him a sense of comfort. Danny knew that it would be awhile before the nightmares stopped but he finally believed that they eventually would.

He took one last look at his partner and then turned to look out the window; he couldn't wait to have that beer.

The End