Way 23

Extend God's grace to him and be forgiving when he offends you.

Danny hadn't found himself gracing the interior of a Catholic church since he'd graduated high school. His mother, a devout Catholic herself, had insisted her children would be raised as Catholics. As a not-so-devout Jew, Danny's father acquiesced without too much kerfuffle over the matter, and so that had been that.

They'd all gone through catechism. They'd all had their confirmations and made their proper prayers to Mary and the saints and the angels and, of course, to Jesus and God. Danny had never really internalized it much, but he had never forgotten that time when his dad, the big, bad fireman that he was, had been hurt during a four-alarm fire just east of Weehawken.

After getting all four kids to the hospital at eleven o'clock at night, Danny's mother had discovered her husband was going to be in a hyperbaric chamber for at least twenty-four hours to try and keep the third and fourth degree burns he'd gotten from the waist down to his toes from becoming infected.

And while Danny as the eldest boy, though not the eldest child, had only been eight years old at the time, he'd understood enough about the atmosphere and the tears streaming down his mother's and his older sister Ruthie's face to know something was very, very wrong with Daddy. To maybe have the feeling he might not ever see Daddy again.

But their mother hadn't taken the kids straight home and put them to bed, then paced the floor all night long fraught with worry. No. She'd taken them to St. Lawrence Roman Catholic Church on Hackensack Avenue, their regular haunt every Saturday evening for mass and every Wednesday evening for catechism.

The night priest, as Danny liked to think of him, had been there. A handful of nuns were scattered throughout the ornate sanctuary. With its old bells in the belfry and the gigantic stained glass windows behind the gold-plated, ornate depiction of Saul on the Road to Damascus, it had never failed to awe little Danny when he stepped foot into the big room.

Nobody but the priests and nuns were there at a quarter to one in the morning. Mary Williams settled her four children into the front pew. Ruthie and Danny stayed awake, while Matty and Abby curled up head-to-head next to Ruthie's hip and fell asleep. Danny watched his mother move forward, sign the cross in front of her chest and kneel before the altar. Tears streamed down her face as she folded her hands into a tight knot of fingers and rested her elbows on the low wooden bar in front of her.

Danny squirmed. He never had been good at holding still, his mother often referring to him as her little Jewish-Catholic Jumping Bean. Religion had always been a staple in Mary Williams' life, but it hadn't been until this overnight visit to the Church that Danny had started maybe understanding why.

He remembered getting up even as Ruthie hissed at him to stay next to her. He'd walked slowly to where his mother knelt and had gone to his knees next to her after crossing over his chest like he'd been taught to. His little hands had clutched at each other until his fingers were white with the pressure and after a few moments he'd spoken.

He knew he wasn't supposed to, but he needed to know.

"Will God and baby Jesus and the Virgin Mary save Daddy?" he whispered, blue eyes large and round as he stared into his mother's face.

"I honestly don't know," Mary had replied with a small smile, wiping tears from her cheeks with the sleeve of her heavy winter coat. "But when you have no other hope, Daniel, it can't hurt to give God the chance to try."

And that was when little Daniel Williams had finally begun to understand something about faith. He hadn't kept up with his church-going after leaving home for the police academy, except to join his mother, father and siblings for certain special events like Christmas Mass, Easter Mass, Ash Wednesday or anything else his mother asked him to come to with her.

Now, twenty-seven years after the incident where his father almost burned to death but managed to eventually make a full – if not painful – recovery, Daniel Stephen Joseph Williams found himself in the sanctuary of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace. A priest milled around, and even the Bishop of Honolulu was there for some reason. Danny didn't know the man on sight, but he recognized the reds within his clothing that set him apart from the rector.

Danny didn't really know why he'd come, other than those words of his mother's. Back then, they'd been about his father but now? Now they were about Danny's very own partner. Steve, much like Joe Williams, had been badly burned from the waist down when a stack of propane tanks in one of those goddamned dock warehouses had exploded under a hail of their suspects' bullets.

Just like when he was eight, all Danny could do right now was wait to see if Steve would make it. If his terrible, painful burns would become infected. If the months and months of physical therapy ahead of him, assuming he did survive, would get Steve back up to SEAL…and his own personal…standards.

This one had hit them all hard. Chin and Kono had sought comfort with each other at Kono's place. They'd invited Danny, but Danny had felt drawn instead to set foot into the unbelievably garish and ornate sanctuary where he now kneeled in front of the altar staring up at a statue depicting Christ on the cross.

He bowed his head. He didn't really know why he was there. But his mother's whispered words came back to him, and Danny spoke out loud for the first time since he'd walked through the sanctuary doors an hour before.

"My partner might die," he whispered into his forearms. "I know I'm not a good Catholic, but if you really are up there, please…" His voice trailed off, the thought of his cell phone ringing, of him getting word that Steve hadn't made it, making his throat close up.

He fought the one-two punch that felt like it'd hit his chest and stomach with that image and swallowed convulsively for a few moments hoping he wouldn't up and puke his first time back on his knees like this.

Finally, pushed forward only by the look on his mother's face so long ago…by the tears she'd unashamedly cried in front of her children…and by the miracle that had been Joe Williams' survival…Danny found a way to speak again.

"If you're really up there…if you really saved my father, then please…" Danny squeezed his eyes shut as his emotions raged. "Please don't let Steve die." He was even prepared to forgive Steve for every hare-brained stunt he'd ever pulled, as long as it meant he was still alive to pull more for a long, long time to come.

Danny wasn't sure how long he stayed there like that, silently willing every cell in Steve's body to live, willing God and Mary and Jesus and whatever saints might be listening in on his thoughts to keep his partner around for him. But when he finally made himself stand, and stretched slightly to work the stiffness out of his limbs, his mother's whispered words echoed inside his mind.

"When you have no other hope, Daniel, it can't hurt to give God the chance to try."

Danny's cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He looked at the display. Fear clutched at his heart as he quickly moved out of the sanctuary into the bright Hawaiian afternoon sun. He answered the phone with just his last name.

The doctor's voice was strong and confident in his ear. And Danny really couldn't tell anyone later precisely what the doctor had said to him. Because the only words that stuck out in his mind, that replayed over and over like a mantra as he ran to the Camaro and gunned it with lights and sirens on to the hospital, were, "Your partner's going to be okay…"

Danny would never know whether his visit to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace had had anything to do with Steve's body miraculously deciding to start healing so fast it stunned every doctor in the Burn Unit. But once he'd seen for himself Steve's eyes wide open, Steve's pained smile and Steve's chest moving on its own with every breath he took, Danny knew he'd be calling his mother.

If for no other reason than to tell her that now he completely understood.

Author's Note: I don't usually do this with these '100 Ways' stories, but Way 23 begged for it, so Way 24 is now its sequel.

Way 24

Find ways to show him you need him.

Steve hated being incapacitated.

But what he hated even more was having just enough mobility and use of his legs to shuffle from one room to another, but not enough to climb the stairs, go for a swim or even do the most basic of exercises.

He couldn't do anything at all without Danny and he fucking hated it.

Danny didn't seem to mind one bit. He'd been nothing but attentive without hovering too much. Nothing but caring without making Steve feel like he was the same age as Gracie. Nothing but helpful without making it seem like Steve needed anything at all.

And yet, Steve did need. He could barely shower on his own, although, at least they'd moved up the ladder from sponge baths. Talk about humiliating. He could barely get through making himself breakfast before the nerves on his legs were screaming so badly all he wanted to do was cut both of them off at the groin. And was it his imagination or had Danny started looking more and more haggard, the more that Steve allowed himself to wallow in the frustration of his predicament?

He sat back on the couch, legs uncomfortable but starting to feel a little better after the latest dose of nerve pain meds Danny had made him take. He watched as Danny moved around the living room straightening the end table Steve had purposely flipped onto its side in a fit of anger. Watched as Danny picked the books up from the floor that Steve had torn from the bookshelf and flung as far across the room as he could. Watched as Danny carefully set them back in place, alphabetized and all, like Steve's father had placed them many years ago.

And Steve started feeling bad that he'd made all this extra work for his partner…for his friend. Because Danny was heading up Five-0 until Steve was back at full-strength, and he was working like a dog on cases and paperwork and being the boss and trying to get the new recruit from HPD up to speed on how they did things and why.

But when Danny finally made it back to Steve's, sometimes more than fourteen hours after he'd left, he didn't sink into a chair on the lanai with a beer, nor did he plop down next to Steve on the couch. Even on the days and nights he had Grace, they never left Steve's place except to let Gracie play on the beach and in the calm water there…but Danny was forever tending to Steve's needs, forever keeping those watchful eyes on him to anticipate everything and follow through.

Danny was burning his candle at more ends than a candle had, and Steve felt foolish, ungrateful and like the biggest burden on the face of the Earth. But Danny had told him, after the first month of them pushing and pulling at each other once Steve had been allowed to come home, that "there's no place else I'd rather be than here making sure you don't blow your house up just because you're bored."

However, did that still hold true? Or was Danny tiring of what Steve admitted in the privacy of his own mind was nothing less than childish tantrum-throwing behavior? Steve stilled his finger where it had been drumming against his thigh and took a moment to really look at Detective Danny Williams…cop, task force leader, nurse, physical therapist stand-in…and best friend.

"Danny," Steve said, voice gruff. His partner stopped in mid-movement of picking up two more books off the floor. "Come here," Steve finished, gesturing with his hand.

Danny sighed, laid the two books on the nearest shelf and came to stand in front of Steve. "Pain worse?"

"No," Steve said, patting the couch next to him.

"What?"

"Sit down here with me."

Danny shook his head. "I have to make us dinner."

"Please?"

His uncharacteristic use of the word got Danny's attention, got him to sit down next to Steve even if it was just on the outer edge of the cushion.

"You're tense."

"Ya think?" Danny groused, unable to keep the sarcasm at bay.

He was ready to snap. Steve knew it. And he could only think of one way to tell Danny everything he knew he needed to hear, even though Steve couldn't quite bring himself to say the words.

Without a sound Steve leaned forward, ignoring the needle-prick sensations from the nerves up and down his legs, and enveloped his partner in a hug. He waited through Danny stiffening up, then seeming to slump forward a bit. He waited through Danny's sharp intake of breath and then his long, drawn-out sigh. He waited and could literally feel the tension seeping out of Danny's body. Feel every muscle slowly decide to relax. Feel his partner becoming less rigid and more pliable.

And he waited a few seconds after that to pull Danny toward him until they were both leaning against the back of the couch, arms still tightly wrapped around his partner. He waited until Danny finally squeezed an arm between Steve's back and the couch, and brought the other one to rest around Steve's ribs.

Then Steve waited two minutes more until Danny's breathing evened out, slowed and a very quiet snoring filled the air.

It was the least he could do, to let Danny know how much he needed him. And not just because of the burns.