Nice way to start a rainy Monday; time to update!

Before you could ask: Steve's flashbacks about Danny and their arguments (for most of them) was just to remind him what was important to him. It was their unique friendship. The 5-0 Task Force started with Steve and Danny and their curious way of loving-hating each other, Chin and Kono completed the group later. He had to remember that in order to pull through, just like when he was tortured by Wo Fat and he hallucinated about a life where his dad would still be alive and every character would be different. That's how he managed to stay alive and fight that day, and that's how he survived now.

There is also a new enigmatic character (Honey); Steve's first love! Yes, it wasn't Catherine (as you have guessed with season 9 with Greer). And YES, you will know about who he/she is later.

The previous chapter was there to give you Steve's feelings about the McDanno ship, and now it's time to have Danny's!

I can't tell you more, because it's time to read!

CHAPTER 10

Mary-Ann stayed at her brother's bedside two hours after the promise that if Danny loved him back, he would come back to him. Somehow, she had managed to put him to sleep and put him under the blankets of his own bed. In this condition, she could see how much Steve was suffering, mentally and physically. His features were drawn, his forehead constantly wrinkled, as if he was fighting against the pain invading every cell of his body. His skin was a whiteness that she had never seen before; he was unrecognizable.

She had to talk to Danny. He had to know how much Steve cared about him and that his apology was more than sincere. He had to know that he loved him more than anything else and that if he loved him back, he had to be there for him, to support him in this difficult ordeal, even for him. He might have looked strong, but without his support, he was a mess and didn't want to live. Quite simply. Because he was committing a suicide right now. A kiss on her brother's forehead, a tender look, and she left for Danny's house. It wasn't the first time she went there, but it was so rare that she got lost on the way before she had to call headquarters to ask for the detective's address and activating the GPS to enter the coordinates. Once outside the door, about two hours after leaving the family home, she took a deep breath and knocked.

"Danny, this is Mary. Open up please."

Ten seconds later, the blond-hair man opened the door, surprised by this sudden visit.

"What are you doing here? Steve is sending you over here?"

"Uh... Hello to you too", she said, frowning. "And no, your team sent me here."

Just looking at the detective's face, she understood what Steve meant; his eyes were filled with anger. Danny hated him a lot.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Uh... Yes, come in. Sorry."

He stepped aside to get Mary inside and invited her to sit on the couch. Luckily, he didn't have his children; at this time of day, they were still at school and it was Rachel's weekend.

"So my team sent you here? Don't they have the courage to come and see me in person?"

"Actually, it's uh... This is more complicated than that. They called me because they received a phone call from Steve's doctor yesterday. He signed a release form to go home, explaining that he refused any treatment. And all that against medical advice."

"WHAT!"

The violence of Danny's scream made her startle as he stood up with his fists clenched, ready to hit any obstacle.

"Is he stupid or what?"

As he was walking toward the front door, Mary entered stood up in front of Danny to stop him.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Kick his ass, apparently he needs it."

"We have not finished. I'm not done yet."

This time, it was Danny's turn to frown.

"What he needs right now is calm and solitude. Your... Your argument shook him up a lot."

He did not answer but took the time to sit down again, intrigued. Steve, upset by his bloodshed?

"You talked to him", he guessed.

Slowly, she nodded, sighing deeply.

"I mostly tried to cheer him up and listened to him. Look, he told me why he said those words to... Tani, right?"

Danny nodded while Mary-Ann took her phone in hand.

"I need you to listen to something for me, okay? And I want you to listen to the end."

"Why, what is it?"

"Just... Promise me."

"Okay, okay, okay. I promise to listen to the end, are you happy?"

Mary smiled and turned on the tape recorder to review all the conversation she had recorded without her brother's knowledge. At first surprised by this discussion, his expression quickly changed. Danny was decomposing at first sight; he was so angry with Steve and it turned into misunderstanding, then into astonishment and finally into shame. He was so ashamed. He had thought about his own emotions without considering his best friend's; he never in his life would have believed that Steve loved him that much and this way. He had never shown such feelings before. Friendship, a very strong fraternal bond, yes. But love? When did he show him love?

Thinking about it, about this definition of love, he judged that everything was there: the fact of being there for each other, the great friendship that united them, the project that they had had together to open up a restaurant. Even their constant arguments. Over time, they no longer had to talk to each other, as if a telepathic link existed between them and allowed them to communicate without anyone hearing them. What could be related to a powerful friendship and brotherhood for him was proof of a true love for Steve? Mary stopped the recording, watching Danny for several minutes. He seemed shocked, disoriented.

"All this time, and... And he never told me anything?" he started, his voice shattered into tiny pieces.

"Danny, you know my brother better than anyone else. You know he's not the type of guy showing his feelings, even less explaining and sharing them. He had learned how to keep all this to himself, so that it wouldn't be used against him one day."

"But... I am his partner, his best friend. He could have told me that."

"And what would you have done? What would you have done if he had told him that he was in love with you? You would have rejected him? You would have accepted it? What?"

"I don't know", he admitted in a deep sigh. "I don't know. Maybe... Listen, I don't know anything about this, Mary. I didn't even know he was... Uh..."

"What? Gay? Technically, he isn't. He considers himself as a pansexual guy."

"A what?"

"Long story short, pansexuality considers that one can fall in love, sentimentally and sexually speaking, with anyone on Earth, no matter the gender, the sexuality, the origin, the religion or the age."

"Basically, he's bisexual, isn't it?"

"It goes deeper. Bisexuality only considers binary gender; boy or girl. Steve can fall in love with a boy, a girl, a transgender, whoever. But he is in love with you. And hearing these words coming out of your mouth is destroying him. He's slightly killing himself because he thinks he lost you forever."

Danny swallowed hard, using all his strength not to start crying. He had certainly been very unfair to Steve. Telling him everything he had on his conscience had probably not been the wisest idea he had had so far, but he had to tell him all that. He felt the need for it. It had even become vital.

"How I couldn't see anything while I've been around him on a daily basis for nine years", he whispered more for himself than for Mary-Ann.

"In France, it is said that love makes you blind", the young woman joked.

Danny let out a smile, which her interlocutor soon noticed.

"Thank you. For making me listen to this. I think I owe someone an apology. Well... I owe him more than an apology."

"Don't be too hard on him and yourself. You were both on edge about the shooting. It can happen to anyone to have to give in and get their nerves on the first person you find."

After five minutes, Danny decided to go visit Steve. He needed to clarify some points, and kick his ass to try a suicide by pain, just because he thought he deserved it. Bypassing all the security systems of the house, he followed Mary's instructions and went straight up to the upper floor and into his room. Steve was still under the blankets; a thick layer of sweat dripping from his forehead and his breathing was more than fast and saturated.

"Steve?"

He opened his eyes. His best friend was standing in front of him, looking more than worryingly at his face.

"D'nny? What are you doing here?"

"I... I'm here to take you back to the hospital", he explained, knowing that it was the best thing to do at the moment.

Steve was not coherent enough or strong physically and mentally for a more than serious conversation.

"No, I don't want the hospital. Leave me alone."

"I'm not going anywhere. I will take you to the hospital by the skin of your butt if necessary, but you go back to the hospital."

Steve didn't have time to protest, Danny had already taken off the covers and was already helping him to get up and drag him to his car. On the passenger side, of course. For once, he could drive his own car, he wasn't going to deprive himself. About forty-five minutes later, Dr. Kaheko allowed Danny to enter the hospital room in which Steve was staying.

As expected by the doctor, he had developed a high fever because of the sudden cessation of intensive treatments that he had to take the time to stabilize his condition. His heart was so stressed that episodes of severe arrhythmia occurred and even his new medication could not stop them completely. He was dehydrated, starved, his body weakened by fever and fatigue. The fact that his sternum was not healed did not help at all and the doctor had to opt for positive pressure oxygen therapy, at least for a day.

Danny was also told that Steve needed a lot of rest to get back to his feet and that the next few hours would be difficult for everyone but especially for him. The surgeon still couldn't believe that without treatment for nearly twenty hours, he had not developed clots large enough to kill him. It was almost a miracle.

Sitting next to his friend, waiting for him to wake up, he still couldn't understand how he could have missed the signs, which normally never escaped him, that Steve was in love with him. The more he thought about it, the more he tried to find evidence in his memory from the first day they met. From their first fight, Danny noticed as he walked through the scene again that Steve already had that look he had always known, the one who had the gift of exasperating him. The fact that he was one of the few people to whom he could open up without hiding almost anything, his association with him to open the restaurant when it was something he had a certain aversion to. So many things now seemed obvious since he knew what Steve had in mind all along.

But very quickly, his thoughts were blocked by piercing grey eyes; Steve was awake.

"Hey."

Steve then opened his mouth, as if to say something, but the special oxygen mask prevented him from doing so and Danny stopped him before he tried something.

"You don't need to talk right now. Just focus on your recovery, and then we can talk, okay?"

Weakly, the sailor nodded and went back to sleep. Danny watched over him all night without flinching or moving, his hand anchored in his own without wanting to let go of it, for fear that everything would escape him. That Steve would escape him again. The next morning, very early, the doctor came by again. His patient was much better and could now be hooked up to a simple nasal cannula to supply his lungs with extra oxygen, the powerful antibiotics he had given him were a great help fighting fever and infection and his condition had stabilized despite persistent arrhythmic episodes. According to the specialist, this could last a few more weeks depending on the intensity of Steve's effort.

"Thought you hated me", Steve admitted in a whisper.

Surprised, Danny raised his head; his best friend was awake and seemed strong enough to handle a long conversation. He smiled.

"I could never hate you", Danny explained. "Mary told me everything."

"What do you mean by 'everything'?"

"Why you told these words to Tani, what he felt when I got short during the quarantine, when you woke up from your coma. Everything."

"I see."

He was angry with Mary-Ann for sharing their conversation, but deep down he knew that she had only done it for his own good, out of love for the older brother he was.

"Do you really love me?"

Surprised by the sudden question, Steve mechanically turned his head towards Danny with exorbitant eyes. Where did that question come from?

"I mean, uh..."

"I don't think you need me to tell you."

"I need to hear it from you", he insisted, swallowing hard.

Steve sighed. But despite everything, he used the remote control to get up with the bed and sit on the edge in front of Danny. He took his hands gently and squeezed them into his hands as his partner raised his head.

"Danny, I... From the bottom of my heart, love you so much."

These words, they were similar to the ones he had pronounced when both friends had been trapped under the rubbles and Steve was about to use an explosive device that could have killed them in order to get them out. Danny's lips separated as an emotion he hadn't known for a long time overwhelmed him. His stomach knotted, a feeling of having swallowed an anthill seized him. He could feel that his heart was beating in symbiosis with Steve's just by paying attention to those incessant beeps in the background. He hadn't known this feeling since Rachel. He had known him with Melissa and Gabby, but never had he felt it so intensely.

With no visible answer from Danny, Steve thought that the friendship they had was more than enough for his happiness. He seemed shocked. Disappointed, he tried to withdraw his hands, but something was preventing him from doing so; his brother's hands. They were firmly attached to his, as if he didn't want to let go. He blocked his eyes in his partner's blue eyes, and he understood. He realized that Danny simply couldn't speak because the shock was so intense for him. But despite everything, he managed to get up, preferring to sit next to him. He frowned, trying to decipher his best friend's face. He said nothing, waiting for an answer from him.

And he received one. In a way he didn't expect at all, but he received it: Danny's icy lips came to stick to his, tenderly. At first surprised, Steve thought about what his sister had told him the day before; that if Danny loved him too, he would come back to him. And there he was, in front of him, kissing him. He quickly returned this fiery kiss to him and he preferred to close his eyes to savor the moment he wanted to engrave in his heart forever. That moment he never thought he would experience until now. He was happy. The happiest man.

A/N: I am sorry, I didn't tell you sooner that it was gonna be a McDanno love story because... I didn't plan for it to be! I improvised a lot and I don't know how it came to me!

And yes, these flashbacks can now be seen as a two-side story; Steve likes very much this friendship he had built with Danno, but he also loves him!

As they won't explore this relationship on the show, we _fanfiction writers_ have free pass about it! And THAT is so cool!

Hope you enjoyed it because there is one more chapter (where you will know about Honey). I will update Wednesday; it's kind of busy here and I barely have time for me.

Have a nice day, folks!