AUTHOR'S NOTE - My apologies for the delay in posting this update. Hope it has been worth the wait.
"Healing is a matter of time,
but it is sometimes also a matter of opportunity."
- Hippocrates -
10. HEALING
"Danno, when can I go see Uncle Steve?" Grace pulls herself back from her father's chest. Danny's been hugging her fiercely for the last fifteen minutes, almost as if she's his life line, his tether to sanity. She's OK with that, instinctively feeling his need.
Danny looks at her serious, upturned face. "Not for a while yet, Grace Face." Disappointment flashes over her features. "Why not?" Danny sighs. There are so many reasons why he wants to keep his daughter away from hospital; the fact Steve's still unconscious, the presence of the HPD.
The all too real possibility of Wright trying to finish the job he started.
Sighing, Grace presses herself against Danny again. She mumbles something, the words lost in his shirt. "What? Hey, look at me when you talk, OK? Last time I checked my ears were attached to my head, not to my ribs." He smiles down at her.
"What if he ... what if Uncle Steve, you know, dies? And I never get to see him anymore?" There are tears in her eyes when she looks up, and Danny feels his heart drop down into his stomach.
The bond between his daughter and his partner is undeniably strong, and he knows they love each other. But God forbid her being there if another medical emergency occurs, or worse, her being there if he does, indeed, die. He could never live with that, her going through that type of trauma. Then again, he doesn't know is she can live with Steve dying without ever having seen him again.
Danny draws a deep breath, trying to keep the tears at bay. "This is very difficult for me to say, OK Monkey? Yes, there still is a chance that he might not make it; I'm not going to lie to you about that." He can feel her starting to cry against him, grabbing on to his shirt; his own breath hitches as he continues.
"Right now he's not even conscious, so he wouldn't really know if you were there. And to be brutally honest, I don't think your last image of Uncle Steve should be how he..." Danny swallows, his hands tucking a few strands of hair behind her ears. "He doesn't look very good."
Grace burrows deeper into his shirt. "But I promise you ... hey, look at me." Danny gently pulls her back, looking down into two very sad, teary eyes. "I promise you that, if he regains consciousness - and knowing your Uncle Steve that is a very huge possibility, because honestly, I've never met a more stubborn man and he's very capable of thumbing his nose at Death itself - I'll take you to see him. OK?"
Grace nods, then frowns. "The minute he wakes up?" Danny smiles. "The very second."
The presence of the HPD officers stationed at the entrance is annoying, but Wright still manages to enter the hospital. It's amazing how far a wig and fake facial hair will go to change a person's appearance. The uniform he wears over his t-shirt and shorts, stolen from a nearby laundromat, completes his disguise.
Wright is nothing if not resourceful.
For now, all he does is observe, see who is and who isn't allowed near Five-0's Commander, tracking the comings and goings of both hospital staff and others. It's not a matter of not wanting to be caught; Wright has already made peace with the fact that exacting his revenge on McGarrett will most likely be the last thing he ever does. However, he does want to make sure his plans do not fail this time.
So he takes his time, posing as a nursing assistant, ducking in and out of rooms and doing whatever little jobs the nurses and doctors throw his way. His quiet presence does not raise any suspicion, and he is grateful for the fact that having to take care of a chronically ill mother during his teenage years has left him with enough experience to be able to carry out the basic tasks given to him.
As he pushes a trolley loaded with clean linen through the hallway, he freezes as he suddenly spots Noa Hale, one of the young canyoneers coming out of a room. 'You were going to be the next one to pay!' he thinks, but manages to keep the fury off his face.
Then he realizes the room the young man comes out off may very well be occupied by that other brat, the one who jumped off the cliff; the one who lived. Immediately the plan he had thought up changes, his mind making lightning speed modifications by using this new information.
Because, oh, if what he suspects is true ... this is just too good not to take advantage of!
Wright glances at the number of the room, memorizing it so he can look up the occupant's information, then slowly continues to walk down the hallway. He doesn't notice Marc Lejeune coming out of Steve's ICU cubicle, doesn't see him stop and stare at the dark haired man who pushes the cart away from Kai's room and continues down the hallway.
Marc watches him until he rounds a corner, a thoughtful look on his face. Then he turns around and goes back into the ICU cubicle, completely forgetting the cup of coffee he was going to get. Something about the man has managed to grab his complete attention; there's something off there.
Chin and Kono are standing at the main PC table when Danny comes walking into HQ. "Hey Danny!" Kono's sincere greeting manages to put an answering smile on Danny's otherwise exhausted looking features. "How was Gracie?" Danny plunks down in one of the chairs at the conference table, gratefully accepting the coffee Chin has quickly gotten him.
"She was fine, although a little sad" Danny says before taking a sip and blissfully closing his eyes for a second. "Upset because she can't go see Steve yet." He doesn't mention his daughter's fear of never being able to see Steve again, his own brutally honest words. It's just too painful too mention, considering how realistic that situation still might prove to be.
"Aahh, she misses her Uncle Steve, huh?" Kono sits down next to him, placing her small but capable hand on Danny's. "I think we all do, cuz." There is a sad little undertone in Chin's voice which catches Danny's attention; sometimes he forgets that this whole situation has not left his team members untouched either. They all care deeply about Steve.
Danny scrapes his throat, smiles at Kono, then looks at Chin. "I just popped in to see if you guys had found any new information on Wright." He watches as Chin shakes his head. "No, sorry. Guy seems to have gone up in smoke, like he knows we're on to him."
Damn it!
It's not what Danny wants to hear, not something which eases his mind with regard to Steve's safety. Or that of the young people who helped get him off the mountain. "You think one of the guys we arrested managed to tip him off?" A little frown appears on Chin's face. "Well, never say never, but we have them in complete isolation, so I'd say it's highly unlikely. "
Kono gets up, then lets her fingers fly over the PC console. "We have HPD at the hospital, and there have been two unmarked cars watching Wright's place from the moment we got all the information out of that one guy. There's no way anybody could've tipped him off without us knowing it, and he hasn't been spotted there since, so he couldn't know about the arrests either."
"Which means" says Lou as he comes walking in, "that Wright must've been at the hospital already. The jacked-up security there is the only way he could've known we're on to him." Danny turns pale while the others are silent as they let the implications of Lou's words sink in.
Kono is the first to voice their anxious thoughts. "He might even already be in the hospital." Chin sprints to the PC table to call up the hospital's security footage while Lou places a call to HPD. Danny is halfway out the door already, yelling back over his shoulder. "I'm going over there, you guys try and give everybody a heads-up about Wright. And I mean everybody!"
With that he's gone.
Nobody sees Peter Wright carefully opening the door to linen room. He rolls the cart inside, quickly looks over his shoulder to see if anybody has spotted him, then quietly slips inside the room and closes the door behind him.
From his right pocket, he withdraws a vial of potassium chloride he has just filched from a medicine cart in one of the rooms. It fits perfectly within the new plan he has devised, a plan which will finally result in what he has wanted for so long: revenge!
Scanning the room, he notices an empty plastic carrying bag with the logo of a local clothing brand. He takes off the uniform, stuffs it in the bag and then buries the vial in between the folds of clothing. Then he opens the door, and when the coast is clear he quickly sneaks out again.
Calmly walking down the hallway, he throws the two HPD officers stationed at McGarrett's ICU cubicles a friendly smile as he passes them; they nod in answer. When Wright steps out of the hospital, having just nodded at more police officers stationed at the main entrance, the warm afternoon breeze blows unnoticed through the synthetic hair on his head as his smile changes to a grin.
This will be much easier than he thought.
The sensation of pain has been slowly but steadily seeping through to his subconsciousness. He still doesn't recognize it yet as such, but his body does respond to it, speeding up his heart beat, causing small but restless movements.
The restlessness continues, the not-yet fully perceived sensation of pain sparking along previously dormant nerves, causing neurons to fire within his brain. His system, although still far removed from being completely activated, is being nudged out of its auto-pilot setting, the survival mode it has been in.
Despite the fact that the deviated flow of oxygen resulting from the tracheostomy tube barely allows any air to reach his vocal chords, a soft, sighing moan escapes his lips.
Marc Lejeune sits next to the bed of Five-0's Commander, absentmindedly resting his hand on an unmoving arm; the man in the hallway is still on his mind. There was just something about the way he had lingered outside of Kai's room, looking at the room number, that caused a sense of unease to settle in his gut.
The soft moan of pain rips through Marc's thought process right before the heart monitor starts shrilling an alarm. His head jerks up to check the monitor, and when he looks down at the man in the bed he can see the eyes are moving behind closed lids, then feels small twitches start up in the arm he has his hand on, seeing the fingers starting to spasm.
He lunges for the call button just as a nurse comes hurrying in. The woman checks the monitor as she turns off the alarm, looks down at the man in the bed, then at Marc. "What happened?" Marc shakes his head. "Nothing, nothing happened." He turns towards the bed again as the nurse rushes out.
"Hey Commander, what's going on, huh?" Marc gently checks the pulse underneath his hand, then settles his hand on the spasming fingers. He sees more twitches in other parts of the Commander's body, feels the slight strain of muscles communicating through his own hand.
Placing his other hand on the man's head, he softly speaks. "The doctor is on his way; just hang on."
The distant murmur reaches down into the darkness he is in, not even close to resembling actual words, but he is aware enough to realize that the source of the sound, although somehow familiar, is different from the one that has been comforting him.
His body is now in constant, although barely noticeable movement. Muscles contract, then relax as his mind slowly becomes aware of the nerves sending messages of his injuries along to the neurons in his brain, who then send their chemical messages to other neurons to cause them to fire in turn.
He moans again.
Danny is rapidly walking down the hallway when he hears the shrill of an alarm. Shocked, he sees a nurse rushing into Steve's ICU cubicle, then come out a moment later again, hurrying off. He starts running, then roughly pushes aside one of the HPD officers leaning around the corner to take a look before entering the cubicle.
He's just in time to hear Steve moan.
"What the fuck is happening?!" Danny anxiously stares at Steve, immediately noticing the restless movements, the small frown on his friend's brow, the calming hand Marc has placed on his head. The other man shakes his head. "I don't really know, Detective Williams; there doesn't seem to be a medical emergency, but the nurse is getting the doctor."
Just then the nurse returns with the doctor in tow. The man quickly looks at the monitors' outputs, checks the data, then gently lifts one of Steve's eyelids to shine a light in his eye before barking out an order to the nurse.
Marc pulls Danny back from the bed so the doctor has room to move; the small detective nearly strains against his hands, desperate to be close to his friend who's in obvious discomfort. "What's going on?" The doctor doesn't respond, instead pulling back the sheet from the frame covering Steve's lower body, then gingerly examining the open, gruesome looking wounds.
Danny feels his stomach clench again at the sight of the raw, red flesh of Steve's legs, and he feels Marc's hands tightening on his shoulders. The nurse returns with a syringe in her hands, and the doctor takes it from her before injecting its contents into one of the IVs.
As the doctor moves away to write something down on a chart, Danny walks up to the bed, then places his hand on Steve's head, stroking his hair. "What did you just give him, what was that you put in his IV? And what the hell just happened?"
The doctor throws Danny a strange look, then looks down at the chart again. "We just gave the Commander a strong analgesic, a painkiller."
Danny sits down on the chair next to the bed, continuing to gently strokes Steve's hair and forehead, watching the small frown smooth out as the painkiller which has just been administered starts to do its work. The beep of the heart monitor gears down from its previous erratic pace and settles into a lower, steady rhythm; the twitching of the right hand stops, the fingers relaxing.
Turning as Marc places a hand on his shoulder, Danny throws him a small, grateful smile, then looks at the doctor. "So why did he need a painkiller? What happened?" The doctor finishes writing down the details of both the event and the administered drugs, then turns towards Danny.
"Something I quite honestly didn't expect, Detective Williams." Danny lifts an eyebrow, and the doctor hurries to explain himself further.
"Commander McGarrett is showing signs of waking up."
Stunned, swallowing back the fear that had jumped up in his throat, causing his own heart to gallop like a race horse, Danny stares at the doctor. "Waking up?" The man nods. "Not in the sense of being able to sit up and talk any time soon, but he no longer is so deeply unconscious that he doesn't register pain."
Danny frowns, trying to wrap his mind around the situation. "So ... the fact that he feels pain, that's a good thing then?" The doctor nods again. "Yes. It also means we'll have to monitor him to make sure he remains comfortable, that he receives adequate pain relief. He needs all his energy to heal now."
Nodding his understanding, Danny turns towards the bed as the doctor leaves. A soft cough reminds him of the fact that Marc Lejeune is still there. "If you don't mind, Detective Williams, I'll be leaving now. I have to report for duty in a little while."
Danny turns towards the young man standing behind him. "I, ehm ... I haven't thanked you yet for covering for me. Trust me, I would be severely reprimanded if my mother knew I was forgetting my manners, putting the Williams name to shame." Marc grins. "No problem, Detective, no problem at all." Then he turns serious. "What just happened with the Commander, that's a good thing. It means he's making his way back."
Danny slowly exhales, willing the tension to leave his body. "I gathered as much. Guess all we can do now is wait." Marc smiles gently at the blond man sitting next to the bed. "Like I said, Detective, the Commander obviously is a fighter. I'm sure we don't have to wait too long."
With that, he nods and leaves.
Sighing, Danny turns back towards the bed again, placing his hand on Steve's arm. He is utterly and completely exhausted from all the emotions of the past few days, the fear of his best friend's hold on life slipping away, having to watch him lose this battle.
The reassurances of both the doctor and Marc that Steve is not only holding his own but actually managing to improve has gone a little way towards relieving his anxiety, but he knows he won't really believe it until Steve is sitting up in bed and demanding to be released from hospital.
Carefully leaning over the bed, Danny puts his mouth near Steve's ear, his breath causing a small wisp of dark hair to flutter against his friend's temple as he softly whispers his resolve to help Steve through this.
"I'm back, babe; I'm here for you. You're doing great, you're going to get better."
He watches as the lines around Steve's eyes smooth out, feels the last trembling within the body fade away to complete stillness. It tears Danny apart, the knowledge that this is a fight he can't help his partner with, that all he can do is whisper comforting words as he is forced to watch Steve go through this battle by himself.
"Sleep, babe, so you can heal."
The murmuring disappeared, and soon afterwards so did the sensation causing his body to be so restless. Just before he fully sunk back into the dark sea, the other familiar and comforting sounds reached him again, translated themselves into barely perceived words.
Sleep, babe, so you can heal.
Soothing, the voice reached down to the place where he now resides, into the calm darkness where the previously minuscule spark of life is now slowly evolving into a small but steady flame.
He sleeps.