One day earlier...
Danny didn't think he'd ever laughed so much in his life as he stood there in the bullpen trying to teach Chin, Kono and Steve how to wrap the Mobys over their shoulders, around their backs and around the infant. He explained the logic for choosing the wraps over more conventional child carriers due to the instability of the babies' necks and the need to completely bundle and secure them to their bodies.
None of them knew which two of them would wind up with the infants, nor how fast they'd need to get out of wherever it was they were rescuing them from, so using a couple of Grace's dolls, Danny made all three of them practice until they were securing those dolls to themselves in twenty seconds flat. He was so proud he applauded. Only Kono seemed happy to have the new skill, while Chin and Steve were more embarrassed than anything.
Next came the lesson about how to swaddle a newborn, a feat which Chin and Kono mastered quickly, but which Steve said didn't make a lot of sense. Of course, Danny observed, it didn't help that he kept trying to make military-grade corners out of the edges of the blanket before wrapping the doll in it. Finally the group had dissolved into something resembling hysteria, laughing so hard they had tears coming out of their eyes.
Once they'd finally calmed down, Steve shot Danny what he chose to interpret as a grateful look, because it was the first time, Danny knew, Steve had actually laughed since being arrested. Danny just winked at him, gathered the black wraps and soft light blue blankets and folded them, leaving them on the corner of his desk.
They'd ordered takeout from Boston Pizza at Danny's insistence, grudgingly agreeing that it even had good food for health nuts like Steve. Through the good-natured ribbing they worked together from eleven in the morning until four in the afternoon, when Steve decided to show them all the equipment he'd been able to get hold of. Danny decided it was best not to ask how.
And then it was forty-five minutes before sunset, and they were at Hickam Air Force Base, with an old friend of Steve's father getting them into the Huey that would take them to Kauai. They were already dressed in fatigues, and Steve had his face paint on. He did Kono's first once they were airborne, and then Chin's, before he approached Danny, who just couldn't keep his eyes from crinkling in a smile as Steve went to work.
"We're there," came Steve's voice at last, just when Danny was about ready to move from taking-the-Lord's-name-in-vain-curses against his bum knee into the I-will-curse-all-your-ancestors-with-voodoo internal rant. He wasn't about to let that damn knee stop him, though, no matter how long he might be laid up in the aftermath, because there were babies.
And if Danny wanted to accuse Steve of having father-related issues, he knew he had to first acknowledge his own child-related issues and okay, he could go with that. Because none of them liked it when kids were involved, but newborns? Danny resolved to personally pull a McGarrett-neck-break manoeuvre on Wo Fat just for that alone.
The team stepped out of the jungle into a clearing, gathering in a semi-circle around Steve. In the moonlight Steve and Chin studied the northwest edge of the Alexander Reservoir. There was a small building there, roughly ten feet by twenty, and just as Chin was about to pull his iPad out to confirm that they were where intel had led them to go, a plaintive wail rang through the night. It startled a group of birds only a few feet from the small shack and Danny felt his blood run cold.
They'd found Stephen and Daniel Fraye, no mistake.
The perimeter of the reservoir was flat with no vegetation. Kono gauged the area nearest the shack where there was still jungle canopy about twenty feet back from it. She touched Steve's hand, pointed at the area, and waited for him to assess it with his goggles. He turned and nodded once, Kono responding in kind, and she was suddenly back into the jungle making her way toward the spot she wanted to be in.
Danny shucked off his backpack, opened it and handed a Moby wrap and blanket to Steve and then one each to Chin. Both men stuffed the tightly folded pieces of fabric inside their camo jackets as Danny did the same with his. He closed and latched the backpack and slung it back over his shoulders.
Chin opened his backpack while Danny was busy with his, and pulled out a pair of T7 thermal goggles. First he scanned the entirety of the jungle around them, then all the way along the perimeter until he spotted Kono, crouched and aiming at the shack. He gave a thumbs-up sign to let Danny and Steve know she was good, then continued on to the shack and made a clean sweep around until he was looking behind them.
"All clear," he said in a voice so low Danny wondered how it didn't come out as a whisper.
Stuffing the goggles back into his pack, eyes having adjusted well enough to the darkness now that they could pretty well see every feature on each other's faces, Chin looked to Steve for direction. Danny waited as Steve signalled for Chin to move around the right edge of the shack, nearest their current position. Chin nodded and crouched low to wait for Danny and Steve to get into place.
Danny watched carefully, every muscle tensed, as Steve indicated he should move around to the left side of the shack furthest away, and then that he himself would take the reservoir side. Which, Danny thought in the snarky inner voice he was forcing to remain inner, was only because Steve wanted to swim, he was quite sure. They waited until Steve had removed his boots and socks, jacket and tee shirt, and used his belt to tighten them into a small pack. The Moby and baby blanket were wrapped inside the jacket, and Danny sincerely hoped it wouldn't be Steve forced to wrap soaking wet cloth around a newborn boy.
"Move," Steve said quietly, and Kono tensed, aiming directly at the shack while Danny stayed along the jungle line to the far side of it and Chin inched closer to the nearer side. Steve skimmed along the undergrowth until he was close enough to the water to wade in from jungle cover. He held his clothing above his head, having left his boots and socks back at their rendezvous point.
Danny made it around to his spot and watched as Steve managed to keep his head, arms and clothing out of the water. He grinned to himself, acknowledging that he should've known Steve wouldn't get the baby items wet in spite of the fact that he had only his feet to propel him along.
Danny's was the side the door was on. The shack was elevated two feet off the ground, and Chin and Danny waited until Steve had crawled up underneath it, before moving slowly forward. Then the door slammed open and before Danny could even blink, something flew through the night. It landed somewhere in front of him as he squeezed off a shot.
Danny went down the moment the grenade exploded.
Fighting his way back to the land of consciousness, he groaned, then remembered he was supposed to be keeping quiet. He heard an awful lot of noise, volleys of big-gun fire being exchanged and in amongst it all the familiar cries of babies. That brought him awake a lot quicker and he touched a hand to the side of his head as he attempted to sit up. But that wasn't happening as the world teetered and seemed to fall completely sideways.
It took a few seconds for Danny to realize it was him who'd fallen sideways and not the world. His hand felt wet and sticky and he steeled himself to actually feel along the left side of his skull above his ear. He hissed loudly, estimating it to be a four-inch graze to his head, probably from a bullet or maybe shrapnel. Struggling to keep himself calm, he slowly took stock of the rest of his body.
When he tried to take a deep breath, he knew instantly at least two ribs were broken, if not more. And then he realized he couldn't feel his legs. Swallowing hard, Danny tried like hell to lift his right leg and thought he was doing it, but a quick glance down at his lower extremities made him way too dizzy for words at the same time as he realized his leg hadn't moved an inch.
"Shit," he breathed.
"Danny!" came the tinny voice in his ear. "Danny, where are you?"
"Can't move," Danny whispered fiercely. He tried lifting his head again.
"Location!" Steve barked into his ear.
He could hear bullets whizzing past him, patting into the leaves nearby and the trunks of the trees they hung from. So he was close to the canopy, or maybe he was in it? He couldn't tell, he simply could not get his vision to focus well enough to make out anything more than funny shadows. Then, as though someone had flipped a switch, the gunfire ceased.
The babies were still crying. That meant they were alive. Danny breathed a sigh of relief and smiled in spite of the pain that threatened to take him back down to darkness at any second. They'd won. They'd beaten Senna and maybe even Wo Fat. He was starting to feel like he had back when the sarin had gotten into his lungs, and struggled to keep his mind on something much more positive than a repeat performance.
He was just about ready to succumb to sweet sleep when Kono's voice broke in from right above him. "Here, here, here!"
"Danny!" Steve yelled as he and Chin skidded to a stop next to him.
"Number," Danny coughed, "of-" he gasped in pain, "that truck." He couldn't tell who had the infants, but pretty much figured Kono had at least one of them strapped to her from the direction of the sound.
Steve knelt down at Danny's head, shining his flashlight all over him from head to toe. "Injuries," he said breathlessly and a squall from his general direction told Danny he was carrying the other baby.
"Grazed...skull," Danny panted, willing his breathing to just calm down. "Ribs," he continued. "Can't feel..." He hitched a breath, desperately trying to keep from letting panic fill him. "Can't feel...my legs."
"No no no no," Steve said, voice sounding wrecked to Danny's ears. There was a bit of a scuffling sound and then the muted sobs of the baby he was sure Steve had been holding seemed to move further away. Suddenly Danny felt hands touching his head and he half-growled and half-hissed when those fingers touched the wound above his ear. "Danny! Dan, come on, stay with me. I'm getting you out of here."
"Can't...walk..." Danny said, and managed to reach up and take a firm hold of Steve's wrist. "Get the babies...go..."
"No fucking way," Steve replied, voice clipped. "Leave no man behind."
"Christ," Danny breathed, stifling the urge to cry out when Steve's fingertips skimmed across what must have been his busted ribs. His back arched in pain and that made it hurt even worse and this time he couldn't keep the cry of pain to himself.
"Boss, we're getting the twins out of here," Kono said. "You get Danny."
"Go!" Steve barked, and Danny heard Chin and Kono flee into the jungle.
"Fucking SEAL," Danny groused, sputtering and realizing that something wet had come out with those words. He squeezed his eyes closed. Blood from the mouth was not good. Not good, not good.
"Danny, the team brings their own out, every time," Steve said fiercely, and was that the sound of engines Danny could hear in the distance?
"Dead guys?" Danny whispered, wishing like hell Steve would just go.
"You are not dead!" Steve whispered fiercely. "But yes, even dead guys."
Danny didn't know what the hell Steve was doing trying to move him when for all he knew it could make Danny's condition worse. But his head was being jostled and then his body was being worked over so he knew Steve was, indeed, moving him. Then he felt like someone was sticking a few thousand knives into his gut and opened his mouth to cry out. Instead, Steve's jacket sleeve was pressed to his lips and Danny yelled unintelligible sounds of agony into the fabric before finally succumbing to blessed oblivion.