Okay, so I didn't quite make my goal of publishing this on the 1st, so as to ring in the 2016 with a brand new post, but I'm going to consider the fact that 1:40am could be considered the night of the 1st technically good enough.
SO. Here we are with another chapter! Thank you all for being so wonderfully patient with me and urging me to get my ass in gear and post! There's only one story left to go in this installment, and I promise that I am going to try my hardest to get it published within a few weeks. And then, you'll have a brand new set of stories to look forward to that go with Imagine Dragons second album!
Anywho, here we go. I hope you all like this and all those pesky standard disclaimers apply. ;)
"We are all living,
Till we grow older.
You'll be the worker,
I'll be the soldier."
"You're on his fucking hit list!"
The words rang out loudly in the central room of headquarters, loud enough for Chin and Kono to raise their heads from their spot of relative safety in her office, where they had excused themselves to in the early stages of this argument.
It was an argument that had been raging since the beginning of the case they were on, since they discovered that the motivation behind their yet-uncaught mass murderer was to hunt down all the people he felt were responsible for taking his son away. A son, that not so coincidentally, had been removed from his custody at the behest of Five-0 a few weeks prior during the course of another investigation. An interview with a witness and his son had led to some misgivings that had nothing to do with the case, but nonetheless had McGarrett following up on. Some suspicious bruising, some cagey behavior, gut feelings had all added up to the SEAL placing a call to social services, and the subsequent investigation had provided enough cause to remove the boy from his father's care.
Danny hadn't given much thought to boy, or his father, since the case had closed, had been busy with new cases and things with Grace to think about the man Steve had reported to CPS. But all of that changed when there was a shooting at a foster care center, all the victims injured or killed with the same gun registered to the boy's father, and that man was definitely at the forefront of all Danny's thoughts when they searched his house and discovered a list upon which were written the names of the social workers who'd removed his son; the doctors that had examined the boy; and Steve.
Steve's name, bolded and underlined, on a piece of paper that had seemed so innocent when Danny had first picked it up. A piece of paper that had proved to be nothing but trouble since he found it, because while they had been able to remove the doctors to protective custody, Steve refused to do anything to insure his own safety from the moment that Danny had first suggested it, piece of paper in hand.
The rest of the team had been standing in the suspect's kitchen, regrouping after his house had been cleared and dividing responsibilities, when Danny came walking in, anxiety already boiling in his gut. He'd handed his partner the list without a word, waited until McGarrett had read and absorbed it, and then had said without preamble, "You need protection."
"No." That was all Steve had said before turning back to the cousins, about to continue with his thought, and it had taken a moment for Danny to realize what was happening.
"Excuse me? No? Your name is on a list with four other people who this guy clearly blames, who has already killed two of them, who just spent the morning shooting innocent people at CPS! I get that you're all macho and whatever, but you still need someone watching your back!"
"That's what you guys are for," Steve had replied calmly, and had then proceeded to go on with his directions, leaving Danny ignored and fuming.
That had been this morning, and things hadn't gotten any better since then. Clearly anticipating an argument, Steve had made a point of getting a ride back to headquarters with Chin, avoiding being stuck in a car with his worried partner for any length of time. When they had gotten back to the Palace, Chin and Kono had quickly volunteered to work on coordinating the search from within her office, obviously knowing what was coming.
And they weren't wrong—Danny had laid into his best friend almost as soon as they had gotten back, and though he had tried to keep his voice down, to be quiet, it just wasn't in his nature. He'd started by asking Steve to reconsider, to just have a unit sit on his house, to take some precautions, but Steve wasn't having any of it.
And that was when Danny exploded.
"You're on his fucking hit list! You are on his fucking list!" Danny yelled, repeating himself, hoping that if he just shouted loud enough, the idea might get through Steve's head. "He is hunting for you! Right now, he's out there, trying to find you, and you're not the least bit concerned! Can you please stop being an idiot for one second and just agree that if we haven't caught him by the time that you go home, you will have a protection detail at your house?"
"No, Danny. I said it the first time," Steve was still calm, his voice still collected even in the face of Danny's anger. "Listen, I get that you're worried, and while I'm touched, I'm not scared of this guy. First of all, we're going to catch him, probably soon, since half the island is looking for him, so you're probably worrying for nothing. Secondly, this guy is an angry man bent on revenge, but it's not like he has any training. I think I can protect myself."
"Oh, so this is an ego thing for you? Are you that fucking dumb, McGarrett? You think that by accepting help that we're somehow going to think less of your Navy prowess? Pull your head out of your ass! Yeah, you're a badass Navy SEAL—I get that, I respect that, I understand that. But just because you're the darling of the Navy doesn't mean that some angry man bent on revenge isn't going to be able to get the drop on you! What if he's just waiting at your house and the moment you open the door he shoots you? Then what are you going to do? You have someone actively gunning for you! Take some damn precautions!"
"I had someone gunning for me for the last five years, Danny." There was anger in Steve's voice now, and as perverse as it was, it made Danny glad to hear because it at least showed that McGarrett cared. "Wo Fat was after me since the day I started Five-0, and he was a hell of a lot more dangerous than this guy! I didn't tuck my tail between my legs and stop living for all that time, did I? No, I kept living my life as normal, which is exactly what I'm going to do now!"
"Yeah, because that worked out so well for you! He kidnapped you off the street and almost tortured you to death!" Steve sucked in a breath like he'd been punched, and Danny couldn't help the guilt that rolled over him at the sight of his partner's face. His experience with Wo Fat last year, his time in that damned white room, his killing of his nemesis…it was something that they didn't talk about, that they had never really talked about after he'd gotten out of the hospital. His walls had been down when they had first found him, for those first few days recovering from the attack, but after that, after Steve had signed himself out of the hospital AMA, he'd never opened up again. Danny had tried, had prodded and prompted, but Steve didn't budge, didn't talk. Danny knew that the entire event was something his partner would rather just forget, and knowing that made him feel like such an ass for using it as ammunition now. "Steve, I'm sorry, okay? I know that you don't like—I just know, alright? But can't you see my point? I know you're the best at what you do, okay? I'm not doubting that. I just don't want to go home and then get a call in the middle of the night that you've been shot, okay?"
Steve's eyes were blank, his face neutral, and Danny could tell that he was making a concerted effort to stop any emotion from coming through. "Fine, Danny. Then why don't you come spend the night with me if that will make you feel better."
"Damn it, Steve, that's not the point and that doesn't fix the problem! The whole point of having a protection detail is so that someone can stay awake all night and watch the house, make sure no one gets in, that sort of thing—I know you know this, since you're a smart guy. Me being there, inside the house, does not stop a mass murderer from getting in! And I'm not saying that I won't come and stay with you tonight, because you always know that I'm there to watch your back, I'm just saying it would be nice to have a few other cops there to cover us too! Don't you get that?"
"I get that I'm saying I'm fine and you're still not listening," Steve said, weary annoyance clear in his tone and in his stance. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to go get some work done to find this son of a bitch." With that, Steve turned around and walked out of the office, ignoring Danny's pleas to please just work from the safety of the Palace walls.
Danny had just started to follow him out the door when Chin stepped out from Kono's office and placed a hand on his chest, stopping him. "Danny, just let him go."
"You want me to just let him leave the building when someone is gunning after him with no protection? He doesn't even have a vest with him!"
"I already told Duke that he should have a couple officers outside the Palace, and they're going to see him come outside. I mean, he's probably going to just get some air anyway, but if he leaves, they'll stick with him."
"You heard him, Chin, he doesn't want any protection. He'll just shake them off—or worse, take out his anger on some poor rookie."
"Then that'll be his problem, and that'll be their problem."
"How the fuck can you be so calm about this? He's going out there by himself and you're acting like it's another Tuesday afternoon!"
Chin's eyes darkened for a moment, a frown tugging at his lips. "Look, I don't like the situation any more than you do, but I also know that you can't protect someone who doesn't want to be protected. He doesn't think he needs it, and he's never going to be patient enough to stick with a detail if he doesn't see its point. Nothing that you say to him is going to change that."
"But he's wrong! This guy isn't going to stop!" He didn't care that he sounded desperate, didn't care that there was a frantic tone to his wail, didn't care about anything other than the safety of his best friend. "And if he's going to refuse protection at night, the very least he could do is not leave during the day without backup until we've caught this guy!"
"Danny, he's a soldier—"
"Sailor," Danny corrected, so finely tuned to the difference that he corrected Chin out of habit, in spite of the fact that he was usually the one making the error on purpose—a fact Chin most certainly noted if his rueful smile was any indication.
"Sailor, sorry. He's a sailor, and more importantly he's a SEAL. He's the best of the best. He's the one used to doing the protecting, not the other way around. And no, it doesn't have anything to do with ego," the Hawaiian man added quickly, seeing Danny open his mouth to argue. "He simply doesn't see it the way that you do. He's the one that does the guarding—of the nation, of people, what have you—not the one needing guarding. It's different for him."
Danny's instinctive urge to argue everything was never something he could quell, and it didn't serve him any better now. "Okay, but cops accept protective details all the time! He shouldn't have any problem recognizing the need for help!"
"First of all, there are plenty of cops that don't accept protective details, even when they need them, for the same reason. But aside from that, it's different with the military, with him. You're a cop, and that's what you do and it's what you love, but your identity isn't tied to that badge necessarily. I mean, it is but it also isn't. You're also a father, and friend, a brother, a guy from New Jersey—you don't define yourself just as a police officer, even though that's a huge part of your life. Can't you see how that's different for him? His lost basically his whole family as a teenager, was isolated and sent away to prepare him for his inevitable career in the Navy. He went to Annapolis, graduated at the top of his class, went through training to be a SEAL, graduated at the top of his class, and then went served multiple tours before moving onto Naval Intelligence. Where in there is there anything but the Navy? Hell, even the man that more a father than John was to him later in life came from the Navy and valued Steve's skills more than Steve as a person sometimes. That's been his whole life, his whole identity, since the time he was sixteen, and I don't think it matters what has happened with our team since then—he's always going to be a SEAL at heart and carry that mindset with him. What part of that belief about himself says that he needs to accept protection from someone else?"
Danny closed his eyes, not wanting to agree with anything that Chin had just said, but finding it impossible to disagree with the Hawaiian man's shrewd assessment of his best friend. "I just…" He trailed off, seemingly unable to figure out what he wanted to say.
"You don't want to see him in danger."
"No. I'm so sick of seeing him in a hospital bed, and I'm so sick of having him have to fight. To fight against the world, to fight to get better, to fight to get out and get back to work. I just want him to be happy. Happy and safe."
"I know, Danny." Chin clapped a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently. "It's what we all want. And I know it's hardest for you because you see the worst of it, but believe me, that's what we all want for him. He's been through too much. But you can't change who he is—the only thing you can do is support him and be there for him."
"You're right, it's just—" Danny wasn't even sure what exactly he was going to say next, but he was interrupted when Kono stuck her head out of her office, worry only partially concealed on her face. "What is it?"
"We've got a problem," she responded to Danny's question, though her vagueness did nothing to really answer it.
"What kind of problem?" Chin asked.
"A carjacking. Kind of, but a little more complicated. I'm not sure it's not more of a kidnapping than a carjacking. Maybe both."
"Kono, the point!" Danny couldn't help his sharp tone, but she didn't seem to be mad at him, only nodding in agreement.
"Sorry, sorry. It just happened downstairs—one of the cops that Duke had sitting outside just called it in. Our suspect just drove up, gun to the head of some poor woman that he'd carjacked. The officer that just reported it wasn't sure what exactly Morton's plan was, but as soon as he saw Steve standing outside, he essentially bargained for Steve to take the woman's place, which of course—"
"Steve did," Danny finished with a groan. "This was one man against Steve and two cops—they couldn't talk him down?"
"The kid that called it in said Morton was wild, didn't want to talk, just wanted to get Steve in the car. He got agitated pretty quickly and so Steve made the decision."
"Please tell me he had his gun with him. Or his cell phone, or something."
"I don't know about his phone, but Morton made Steve toss his gun before getting in the car. Duke said the officer said then they left, Steve driving with Morton's gun to his head."
"I don't get it, if this just happened downstairs, why didn't one of them just come up?"
"Duke said that they ran after the car, to see if they could get a safe shot or something; chased it for almost two blocks before, I'm guessing, Morton made Steve drive faster. They're on their way back now but called Duke immediately." Kono sighed, and ran a hand through her hair, all of them ignoring the small tremor that ran through it as she did so.
"Shit." Danny pinched the bridge of his nose, emotions all over the place, though there was a small voice in the back of his head that sounded suspiciously like Steve that pointed out that his partner had run into trouble right under their noses, with two HPD officers by his side. He pushed that thought forcefully away before taking a deep breath and trying to think about what to do now. "Kono, why don't you go see if you can track Steve's phone?"
She nodded, moving immediately to the center table, fingers flying across the screen as though if by making her hands move faster, she could find Steve faster as well. Danny and Chin stood tensely to the side, waiting for the blip on the screen to give them some idea of where their commander was, waiting for some sign or directive; but in the end, the location didn't help them at all. "His phone is registering a location just down the street, with no movement. So Morton probably—"
"He made Steve toss his phone," Danny finished for her, words tripping over themselves in their hurry to get out of his mouth. "It's no use."
"Well, let's go check it out anyway," Chin replied calmly, always able to keep the peace even amidst the worst of it. "Maybe Steve was able to give us some clue when he ditched it."
"Right, because he totally would have been able to do something while being forced to drive at gunpoint? Let's be real, Chin, he was forced to chuck the phone and there's no point in even bothering looking at it, because it's just going to be a phone with a cracked screen! Just have the officers bring it back with them because that will be as useful as us going out there!"
"Danny—"
"No, Chin, Danny's right," Kono interjected with a sigh. "It's unlikely that Morton would have told Steve where they were going before he had Steve dump his cell, and even if he had, it's unlikely that Steve would have been able to record anything before he tossed it. So we're probably going to be more proactive here digging through Morton's past and his records and whatever else we can find that we haven't already looked at."
Chin looked at both his cousin and the shorter blonde for a moment before shrugging and nodding. "Okay, I'll go give Duke a call to radio out to the officers and then we'll keep combing through Morton's life."
As he left, shoulders tense, Kono sighed. "This is hard on him too, you know. He's never said this, but I think he feels a sense of responsibility towards the boss because of his relationship with Steve's dad. He saw how what happened with Doris really ripped apart John and he got a sense of how hard it was for Steve too, and I think he feels like he needs to watch out for Steve—for John's sake. Not that he's ever said this to me explicitly before, but I know my cousin. He takes on responsibility that's not necessarily his, but it's how he operates."
Danny nodded, not sure how to respond for a moment, ignoring the petty voice inside of him that said that out of anyone he cared the most about Steve, that he had been the one there with him when it truly mattered. But he pushed that ugly thought aside, knowing it wasn't fair, and instead just nodded again. "Why don't we just keep looking, see if we can find anything?"
And so with a nod, they went to work, both silent for the next ten minutes absorbed in their own thoughts and worries. Finally, when Danny couldn't stand the silence anymore, couldn't stand the oppressive dread that had settled on his shoulders, the anxiety that had settled in his gut, he looked up at Kono and opened his mouth to say something, anything at all.
But whatever Danny was about to say was lost as Chin came rushing back into the main room, cell phone clenched in his hand. "Kono, pull up the initial report on Morton."
"What?" Danny was sure the look of confusion on her face was mirrored on his own, both of them thrown by the swift and random order. "What are you talking about?"
"I've been down talking to the officers who were with Steve when he got in the car, and I was going over with them exactly what happened because I figured one of us needed to hear the report from them, not just from Duke. And one of the officers mentioned that when Steve was trying to talk Morton down and make him drop the gun, to let the woman go, but Morton wasn't having any of it. He'd started getting really agitated and started screaming at Steve that because he was the one that started it, he was the one that it was going to end with—and that's when he'd gotten so riled up that McGarrett offered himself in the place of the driver."
"Okay, so what's with the file?" Kono asked over her shoulder, confusion not stopping her from already starting the search for what Chin wanted.
"It got me thinking about where in the world Morton would be taking Steve, and then I thought what if he's going back to where CPS took his son away? Finishing it where in his mind the whole thing started."
Danny nodded, mind already starting to follow Chin's line of thinking. "So you think whatever location in in HPD's—or CPS's, whoever—initial report is where he took Steve?"
"I think it's our best option right now. Two of us go to check it out, the other one stays here to keep digging through anything, everything, just to be safe, but my gut is telling me this is where we need to be right now."
"That's good enough for me," Danny responded quickly, already itching with anticipation, already dying to go and get his best friend back. He knew that Steve knew how to take care of himself, could hear Chin's words from earlier replaying in his head, but that didn't stop the tremor in his hands when he thought of all the things that could go wrong with Steve alone with an incredibly unstable man. "I'll go grab my gear, and then whoever is coming with me can meet me at the car. Because while it's not that I don't trust both of you implicitly, you know I do, I just need—"
"You need to be the first one in the door if he's there," Kono finished with him, her understanding and compassion humbling him once again. "Chin will be right down with the address."
Danny nodded and left the room quickly, stopping by their armory to grab a rifle for himself and the shotgun for Chin, pinching some extra ammo just in case. As soon as he had stashed all of that in the Camaro and then put a vest on, he leaned against the side of the car, tapping his fingers incessantly against his leg in an effort to drum away some of his nervous energy.
But it wasn't helping, wasn't working to dispel his unease. He had known in his gut this morning when he had seen that Steve was one of their suspect's targets that this wasn't going to be a good day, though he'd never truly imagined that they would be running off after McGarrett, trying to save the day. He should have guessed though, should have been smart enough to see that this scenario was always going to end up with Steve in some sort of danger because that's how their lives seemed to work. The terror of losing his best friend to a stray bullet, a grudge match, or some other classified arch enemy never truly left him during his waking hours, never truly let him fully unwind even in their dullest days. It was a constant fear, lurking in the back of his mind, and it came from the fact that his partner refused to be anything other than the best, all the risks of which were put aside. And it wasn't so bad in the early days of their partnership when they'd both been unsure, hesitant, if their budding work relationship was going to be anything more but now… now Danny couldn't imagine Steve not being intertwined in every aspect of his life, being the only brother he had left. And the fact that Steve couldn't see that, couldn't see Danny's fear of losing that, couldn't see how his own inability to be anything other than headstrong impacted Danny was maddening sometimes, and downright terrifying at others. He needed Steve to see that, to finally understand that he had a family that was going to force him to accept limitations on his behavior, come hell or high water, just so that he would come home safe at the end of the night.
So Danny leaned against his car, trying to make these thoughts and worries float away through his hand while he waited for Chin, but it didn't work, not really. He was still just as keyed up as he'd been before when Chin came running down the steps of the Palace only a few seconds later. And as Chin eyed the blonde, took in his agitated posture, cocked his head to the side slightly and asked, "Are you ready for this?", Danny nodded and tried for force all that nervous energy into being ready to go save his best friend.
It had turned out that Joseph Morton's son had been taken away from him at a park near their house, CPS having had tracked them there after receiving no answer at the home on that fateful day. The social workers had confronted the father and son there—a questionable move, in Danny's opinion—in front of a reluctant audience, adding insult to injury.
There was an audience at the park today too, as Chin and Danny found out as they pulled into the parking lot. It was a bad scene, one that made the butterflies in Danny's stomach feel like they were creating a hurricane. Morton was standing in the middle of the park's green space, gun pointed at McGarrett, who appeared to be bleeding heavily from a gunshot to his torso, and who was, in turn, standing in front of a terrified looking family.
Standing in front of them, and protecting them.
"Well, shit," Danny said almost instantly after reading the situation, the sight of his best friend's blood making him both angrier and more focused. "This isn't good."
"No, no it's not," Chin replied, before grabbing his phone. "I'm texting Kono for backup. You ready?"
Danny nodded and gripped his gun tighter before stepping out of the car in tandem with Chin. "You take left, I'll take right and hopefully Steve can keep him occupied." Clearly Steve had already been trying to talk Morton down, one had out of in front of him in a placating manner, the other wrapped tightly around his chest, but McGarrett seemed to figure out pretty quickly what Danny wanted when he met Danny's eyes and nodded, having immediately noticed their arrival. Morton, however, seemed to be completely oblivious to the two new presences, too busy yelling at Steve to get down on the ground and start begging for his life—and those of the family behind him.
"Look," Danny heard Steve say, voice steady despite the blood dripping through his fingers. "These people have nothing to do with what happened to you, nor were they responsible for getting your son taken away. So why don't you just let them go?"
"Because they could have been here that day and no one that was there did a damn thing to stop it! Don't you see?"
"But they weren't, okay? They weren't here and you don't want to traumatize this little boy, do you? Because you're doing this to protect your own son and you don't want to hurt someone else's, so just let them go and deal with me, okay?" As Steve was trying to talk Morton down, Danny and Chin had slowly advanced up behind Morton, who remained in his own delusional world. Steve had kept an eye on their approach, communicating to Danny with his eyes when he wanted them to be prepared to act, which he did at that moment with a slight nod. "Morton, I need you to drop the gun now. You're outnumbered and have nowhere to go."
At Steve's words, Morton whirled around and finally noticed that he had two guns pointed squarely at him. "No! Back off! This is between the Commander and myself!"
"Then you need to let these nice people go," Danny responded, circling around to stand by his still bleeding, yet somehow still standing, partner, positioning himself so that he, too, was in front of the family. "I need you to lower your weapon so they can go and we can resolve this peacefully."
"No!" Morton yelled again, gun pointing firmly still at Steve. "This man took my child away from me, my little boy! And now he has to answer for what he did!"
"The Commander was helping your son" was what Danny wanted to say, what was straining to get out of his mouth, but he knew it would do nothing but set the man off. Instead, he nodded calmly while seething inside, and found the strength to reply in a soothing tone. "Well, you've clearly made him pay for it physically and you've made him face you, so why don't we keep talking about why you're upset without guns?"
"No!" Morton yelled for a third time, though he let his gun fall slightly. "You're on his side, you're all on his side, just like those people I shot this morning! And he's it—he's the last one who helped take my Bobby away, and once he's gone I can get my Bobby back!" At that, Morton brought his gun back up sharply, level at Steve's chest, and pulled the trigger.
At the sound of the gunfire, the family behind them had screamed and ducked, and Chin had fired off a responding shot that hit Morton center mass, causing him to drop immediately. And the bullet that had been meant to be McGarrett's kill shot found its home right in the center of Danny's vest, Danny having stepped in front of his best friend in an instant, protecting him.
Everything seemed like it was quiet for a moment, at least to Danny, as soon as the bullet hit, and it was only slowly that sound seemed to return, though all he could hear was his name being said over and over again. When he opened his eyes, Steve was kneeling over him, concern written into every line of his face. "Danny, are you okay?"
He nodded as he sat up, taking in the fact that Chin had already cleared Morton and was now standing off to the side with the family with such ill luck, and that sirens were approaching quickly. "Fuck, that hurt."
Steve's blue eyes searched his face, looking for any signs of distress. "You're sure you're okay?"
"I'm fine, just going to be really bruised." He still felt a little disoriented, but one glance at his partner's blood stained shirt brought everything back into laser focus. "Shit, you're—"
But before he could even finish his sentence, Steve nodded, all the tension leaving his body at once, and murmured, "Good, you're fine," and then promptly keeled over in the grass beside him; leaving nothing but empty air and bloodstained grass.
In the time that it took for the EMTs to hastily start CPR and take the injured SEAL away to the hospital; for him to be rushed into surgery; for Danny to freak out and burn a pattern in the waiting room floor while waiting in that room to find out if his partner was going to live; for the doctor to come back and report that while the surgery had been touch and go for a bit, Steve would eventually make a full recovery; and for the SEAL to get settled in a room, Five-0 was able to determine almost entirely what had happened in the time between Steve leaving with Morton, and Danny and Chin arriving at the park.
From the Whitley's (the thankfully unharmed family who had simply chosen the wrong day for a trip to the park), they knew that Steve had shown up at the playground already wounded, clearly having done something to piss Morton during their drive. Morton had walked Steve at gunpoint to the exact point in the park where CPS had confronted him previously, and was preparing to shoot Steve in the head when he spied the Whitley family trying to flee.
He had threatened to shoot if they didn't come over and join the party, yelling at both McGarrett and them that somebody, everybody, anybody, had to pay for what had happened to him. McGarrett had placed himself between Morton and the family, ushering them behind them in a line as best he could. The standoff had been going on for about five minutes by the time Danny and Chin had arrived, as nothing Steve had said had gotten through to his adversary.
The only thing left for Danny to know, and which he did desperately want to know, was what had transpired as to make Morton shoot Steve inside the car. It was knowing this fact—this very important yet overall inconsequential fact—that kept Danny's brain occupied while he waited, once more, at the bedside of his best friend, waiting for him to wake up.
When Steve finally did regain consciousness a long half a day after his surgery, it clearly took him a moment to figure out where he was and what was going on. It was a situation Danny was familiar with, seeing as how this was the same thing that McGarrett did whenever he woke up in a hospital room: he opened his eyes, reigned in the immediate panic, swept his eyes wildly around the room until they found something familiar, something that gave him some clue to his location, and only then became calm. The first few times that it had happened, Danny wasn't sure what was happening, had thought something was going wrong, and it was only after one time that a still very groggy Steve had asked where in the world he was that Danny realized both what was happening and that his best friend had literally meant where he was in the world geographically. And that made Danny's gut clench in discomfort, knowing that his partner had woken up in enough strange hospitals during his lifetime to never be quite sure anymore.
This time, however, Danny could see the moment that familiarity returned and remembrance of everything that had happened recently came rushing over his partner as McGarrett's eyes quickly swept over Danny, clearly looking for something. And that something became clear the moment that McGarrett opened his mouth and croaked out, "Are you okay?"
"How very typical to ask if I'm okay when you're the one laying in a hospital bed with tubes running out of way too many places," Danny remarked, his tone only slightly snarkier than he intended, as he reached to grab the cup of ice chips he had kept in preparation. "Here," he said, wincing only slightly when he reached forward to spoon a piece into his best friend's dry mouth.
Steve sucked on the ice for a moment before eying Danny critically again. "He shot you. I remember that."
"He did, but technically speaking he shot my vest. And yes, before you ask, I did get checked out and aside from two cracked ribs, I'm totally fine. I'm not the one that actually got shot. Again. And in the lung, I might add, which was spectacularly unpleasant seeing as you stopped breathing once your adrenaline bottomed out. So thanks for that, really."
"'M sorry," Steve murmured, eyes closed again. "Couldn't hold on any longer."
"You're unbelievable," Danny replied, though his statement didn't have any real heat in it. He was silent for a moment, but finally, when he couldn't hold it in anymore, he asked the question he'd been dying to ask from the beginning. "How did you end up getting shot anyway? The Whitley family said you showed up to the park like that."
Steve nodded, eyes still closed for the moment. "After he got me in the car and had me toss my cell phone, he told me where to go and why. I was trying to figure out if there was a way I could drive somewhere else without him noticing, since he was a bit too angry to pay attention, but he wised up pretty quickly and got even angrier. Not one of my smarter moves." McGarrett stopped here to take a few deep breaths, but started talking again once he opened his eyes and saw the poorly hidden look of impatience on his partner's face. "Then, once I got on the right track, he started going off on how after he killed me he was going to come back and take out of the rest of Five-0, so that I would die knowing that your deaths were on my head. I couldn't risk the fact that I might not overpower him, that I might not get away, and I had to keep you guys safe."
Danny leaned forward and fed his best friend another ice cube, hearing the cracks in his voice again. "So what happened?"
"I decided I was going to crash the car, take him out before he could do anything else."
Danny sucked a quick breath in at that, mind already making up scenarios where they had found the car, mangled and bloody, with both passengers injured or dead, all in the hopes of stopping Morton from doing anything else. He shook his head, trying to dispel those terrible imaginations; glad Steve's eyes had closed again so that he didn't have to see how pale Danny's face had suddenly gotten. "But there wasn't a scratch on the car when we got there."
Steve shook his head tiredly. "No, something in my posture or my face must have given it away because before I could even turn the wheel, he'd shot me. Almost made me lose control of the car anyway, but I managed to keep control and stay awake. SEAL training is good that way."
Danny nodded, though Steve couldn't see him, and squeezed his partner's hand in lieu of saying anything for the moment. Sometimes it amazed him how Steve continued to be a SEAL even after all these years of being a cop, amazed him how being in control and protecting others was so ingrained in him that he could speak about deliberately crashing a car without hesitation, without apparent concern. And in that moment, there was some part of Danny that sighed in resignation, knowing that no matter how many more hit list Steve's name came up on, his behavior and reactions would never change. But even as he came to accept that, Danny also knew that that belief, that behavior, was one of the things that he loved about McGarrett. It drove him up the wall, usually with worry, but it also made Steve the incredibly loyal friend that had wormed his way past Danny's defenses faster than anyone else he had ever met.
So he squeezed his best friend's hand again, and said, "You're a good man, Steven."
Steve shook his head, eyes tiredly finding Danny's. "You're the one that took a bullet for me, you're the good one."
Danny's lips quirked into a smile, knowing that Steve would never acknowledge his own bravery, his own heroic acts, seeing it simply as part of the job. So instead of arguing, instead of trying to make the SEAL see the world his way, Danny just smiled wider and let the sarcasm creep into his voice. "Damn straight I am, McGarrett. And now that you've said it, influence of pain medication or not, I'm never going to let you forget it."
One more to go!
Charlotte