Two days later, Chin was allowed to leave his bed for short spells. Still with his arm in a sling and a small bandage on his head, he and Danny visited with Kono who was now off the respirator and awake. She suffered no serious brain damage from the subarachnoid hemorrhage; only a spatial-temporal displacement that her doctor assured was temporary.
After visiting with Kono, the two friends headed down to Steve's room where they found his doctor taking his vitals. The good news was that Steve's temperature had decreased considerably, which was a sign that he was beating the infection.
During the last week, Joe stayed away from the hospital, stating urgent business abroad. Danny was all too happy about his departure as he suspected him to have a negative influence on Steve's recovery. Something was amiss between those two and he was determined to get to the heart of things.
H50H50H50H50H50H50H50H50H50H50
Nearly two weeks later, the two patients were being prepped up for the transplant.
Danny was lying in the bed next to Steve's waiting for the orderlies to take them down to surgery.
"Guess this is it," Danny expressed with a surprisingly composed voice.
"Yeah. There's still time for you to backpedal."
"No way. I'm in this for the long haul."
"Again, I can never thank you enough for what you're doing. In fact there are no words to express how -" the thought trailed off into a sigh.
"Don't mention it. But you can do me one favor though."
"Name it."
Danny shifted position to stare at his partner. "You can tell me about Operation Caterpillar."
Steve closed his eyes and huffed out an annoyed sigh. "Danny, I- "
"I know, I know, it's classified," Danny finished the all-too-familiar speech. "However in this case, you owe me an explanation." Steve glanced at Danny with a puzzled look. "I was beaten because of that top secret mission of yours," this said with a tinge of cynicism as he wanted Steve to feel a bit of repentance to goad him into unburdening himself. "People died, including Lori and Chin and Kono were hurt. I know you said you're sorry to have gotten me involved and I'm well aware it wasn't your fault, but I'm convinced you'll feel better once you get it off your chest."
Steve squished his eyes shut as another wave of remorse washed over him.
"Steven, you can't go in there with that burden on your conscience. It will hurt your chances of pulling through this. You nearly lost the fight with the infection. Purge your demons now. Please, I'm your friend. I want to help you."
"If I say anything - "
"I swear I will go to my grave with it."
Steve inhaled deeply to summon his courage to confide in strict confidence what has been gnawing at him for three years. He trusted Danny implicitly to guard this secret in the deep recesses of his mind. "Montez was right. I'm the one who killed that Lieutenant."
Danny was stunned and yet the bombshell didn't come as a total surprise. "Okay," he exhaled on a composed voice. "You must have had a good reason."
"Rumor had it that there was a member of a Kill Team among our rank. I began to suspect Lieutenant Boyle because of his weird behavior. Boyle, Garcia and I were teamed together and we got cornered by the enemy at some point. We found shelter in an abandoned bunker. I kept my eye trained on Boyle I thought was acting strange. His bearing was off the mark somehow. When the enemy threw nerve gas into the room, I swore I saw Boyle turning the gun on Garcia and me and," the word stuck in his throat for a second, "and I just shot him."
"Steve, you thought he was going to kill you. That was self-defense!" Danny offered as a sound argument.
"No it wasn't! I should have known better. The effect of the gas had clouded my judgment," Steve gnarled between teeth set in fury. "I was so sure that he was a traitor that my mind made him out to be a killer. So I shot first without first questioning my intent."
"What about Garcia?"
"He was already unconscious."
"Was he as innocent as he claimed to be?"
Steve shook his head. "Innocent in the sense that he didn't pull the trigger on Boyle, but he turned out to be part of the Kill Team. He hid it well until we eventually found out that he had killed three civilians. He was later diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. The psychiatrist assigned to his case testified that it was just a matter of time before he turned against his own. I remember him clamouring his innocence on the witness stand and he sincerely believed he hadn't committed those crimes."
"So you used the shrink's diagnosis to your advantage and testified that Garcia shot that Lieutenant under the influence of his illness."
"Yes."
"You withheld the truth because they would have court-martialed you instead of Garcia, right?"
"But it wasn't my idea to do that," Steve defended.
"Let me guess, it was Joe's." Steve closing his eyes was confession enough.
"Said it was better to blame Garcia who was already suffering from PTSD. He could get a lenient sentence if we pronounced him insane than if I'd said it was me who was sound of mind at the time."
"But you said the gas clouded your judgment."
Steve snorted at the puny argument. "It wouldn't have weighed much in court."
"Don't you see if you hadn't stopped him, he might have gone on a murder rampage?"
"Danny, that doesn't excuse the fact that I shot an innocent man in cold blood and accused a friend of having pulled the trigger," Steve scorned with tears pooled in his eyes at the memory of that day.
"Why was Boyle acting strange in the first place?"
"I later find out that his pregnant wife had been admitted to the hospital for complications. She was obviously on his mind but he didn't say anything. His concentration on the task at hand was lost worrying about his wife. She lost the baby when she heard of his death." Steve sniffed back a tear. "I not only killed her husband I killed her baby as well."
Danny felt his own emotions betray him. He draped his arm across his brow and stared at the ceiling. "What do you want to do about it now?" Receiving no answer, he turned to Steve with a concerned look. "You're not actually thinking of turning yourself in, are you? Think about the implications?"
"I am, Danny."
"These people are dead!"
"Yeah but their names will forever be smeared by my false testimony."
"Oh you and your damned pride!"
"You just don't understand."
"You're wrong there, babe. I do understand," Danny demurred. "I once had to testify against my partner Rick and it ripped my guts to shreds."
"That's different, Danny. The man was guilty. There was clear evidence against him."
"Was there?" Danny blurted out, prompting Steve to stare at him with a deep frown.
"You mean, you made this up?"
"I'm not saying I did - well let's just say there were questionable circumstances. When he came back and kidnapped Grace -" Danny shut his eyes and sighed heavily at the painful memory, "like you and Montez it brought it all back. It compelled me to rummage through the old mind files. Still to this day I keep asking myself if I made a gross mistake. I destroyed his life."
Steve felt empathy for his partner but conversely, he couldn't help but wonder if Danny had contrived this story in order to alleviate the weight off his own mind.
"What do you say we get through surgery first?" Danny turned to Steve to gauge his reaction. "Then we'll deal with it."
"Danny it's not your concern."
"How quickly we forget," Danny quipped. "For better or for worse, in sickness and in health. Let no man or enemy put asunder."
Steve let out a chuckle. "And we now pronounce you nutty and nuttier."
"Which one are you?" Danny humoured and and was rewarded with a small curl of the lip. "Deal?"
Steve gave a half-hearted smile. "Deal."
"Good luck partner." Danny put his fist in the air in a victory gesture.
"You too," Steve offered in a timid voice that sent a chill up Danny's spine at the grim thought of his SuperSEAL pal contemplating forfeiting the fight.
"I'll see you when this is over."
Steve nodded but not convincingly enough for Danny.
H50H50H50H50H50H50H50H50H50H50
Following surgery, the two patients were settled into ICU to closely monitor their vitals. They slept through the night with Steve showing a mild fever that had the doctors concerned about possible rejection.
Mid-morning the next day, Danny's condition was deemed satisfactory enough to transfer him to a regular room.
The blond detective awoke to Chin's smiling face. "Good morning." Danny blinked to focus on the blurry figure leaning over him."Can you hear me?"
Danny nodded weakly and whispered hoarsely, "Yeah."
"Want some water?" Danny nodded. He hissed through gritted teeth at the back pain as he attempted to elbow himself into a sitting position.
"Danny, please don't move. I'll adjust the head bed for you." Chin finished pouring the water into the glass before raising the bed just enough for Danny to drink his water without spills. "Enough?" Danny nodded and laid his head back on the pillow.
Danny squirmed. "Man that hurts."
Chin reached for the IV drip to release a few mg of pain medication. "There, that ought to dull the pain."
Danny exhaled a long sigh of relief as the drug began coursing through his veins. "Yeah it does. Thanks." He turned to Chin who no longer wore the head bandage. "You're looking better," Danny observed foggily.
"I feel better too. Just for this cast," he said motioning to his right arm. "The collarbone is still healing. It's a real nuisance, but I count my blessings."
"What about Kono?"
"She's much better this morning. Her brain is almost back on track and she's already chomping at the bit to get out there on the field. I think she's been hanging around Steve too long."
"Speaking of Steve, how is he?"
"He's still in ICU. The doctors are concerned about his fever. They fear he might be rejecting your kidney."
"No way!" Danny was appalled by the very thought. Notwithstanding his own delicate condition, he flung the covers aside and swung his legs off the bed.
"Danny what are you doing? Get back in that bed!" Chin ordered by pushing against Danny's shoulder with his good hand.
"Chin, I got to go see him," Danny huffed and puffed and winced at the lingering pain that the meds had barely begun to dull. He paused to shake the dizziness away before brushing Chin's hand aside. "Please Chin, help me."
Chin hurried out of the room to hail a nurse down to Danny's room.
"He's trying to get up," Chin explained to the nurse.
"Detective Williams, what are you trying to do? Kill yourself?" she admonished. "You're going to pull out your stitches. Now lie back!" She proceeded to ease Danny down in his bed but the stubborn detective was adamant.
"Please, I need to see Commander McGarrett."
"He's not receiving any visitor at this time."
"I'm no visitor, I'm a damned patient and he needs me!" Danny lashed out, pursing his lips at the painful twinges that his bark triggered. "He needs me to knock some sense into his thick skull."
"You won't help him if you get yourself in worse shape."
"Tell me, how is he?"
"Please Detective Williams, get back in that bed."
"TELL ME DAMMIT!" Danny shouted with tears brimming over in his eyes.
The nurse was hesitant. "He's rejecting the kidney."
The air rushed out of Danny's lungs at the news. "Get me a wheelchair. I need to be with him."
"Detective please," she started to argued.
"GET IT NOW!" Danny was livid, but toned down to adopt a more civilized approach, "Please. I beg of you."
The nurse nodded reluctantly and stepped out of the room momentarily to fetch a wheelchair. Both she and Chin assisted Danny in the chair, taking care to hang the IV drip to the pole before wheeling him down to ICU.
Doctor Russell was standing by Steve's bed taking the vitals when he saw the nurse push Danny in. "Nurse Higgins, what's that patient doing here?" he asked harshly.
"I couldn't hold him down. He insisted on seeing his partner."
"Please, I don't want to argue with you as well, Doctor Russell. I'm here to stay," Danny said resolutely, thus leaving no room for argument.
"I'll take him," Russell said to the nurse who nodded and left the room. Russell wheeled Danny closer to the bed and locked the brakes on the chair.
"Is it true that he's rejecting the kidney?" Danny ventured to ask as he gazed at his fever-ridden partner.
"We've increased the dose of anti-rejection medication but if that doesn't work, we'll need to remove it."
Danny squished his eyes shut and swallowed the emotional lump caught down his throat. "Can I be alone with him?"
"Sure. If you need anything, just press the call button."
Once the doctor was out of the room, Danny heaved himself out of the chair with a painful hiss to come stand by Steve's bed. He was a little shaky on his legs but he managed to tame the throbbing in his back to get a view at Steve's gaunt features.
"What in the hell are you doing, huh?" Danny scolded. He prepared to rake a certain SEAL over the coals. "You're throwing away a perfectly healthy kidney, MY kidney! It's not good enough for you, babe? Do you have any idea how insulting that is?" Danny was beside himself with anger and fear. He took a moment to regain his poise before continuing his tongue-lashing.
"So you're just giving up, is that it?" the constant beating of the heart monitor was his only answer. "I thought we had a deal? Forget about them, Steven. They're dead but we're still alive. WE, your friends. How about you considering what your death will do to us? To Little Gracie?" Danny was coming apart at the seams at the prospect of having to break the news of Uncle Steve's death to his little monkey.
Danny leaned closer to Steve's face, wincing at the spasm in his back, and gave vent to his anger, "Fight this! You hear me? FIGHT! You're no coward." The sight of Steve lying motionless fueled his rage. "Okay, you decide to check out, fine! You'll force me to find another job because forget about me staying on at Five-0, no siree!" Those crushing words sliced through Danny but he kept pounding at Steve hoping they would sink in somehow. "I'll find myself another partner, one that doesn't take the coward way out."
But he just couldn't go on with the empty threat anymore. He buried his head in his hands and wept. "Dammit Steven! Please, don't leave us." He placed a hand on Steve's shoulder. "I love you, you big goof."
