I do not own Hawaii Five-0 or any characters. No copyright infringement intended.

Notes: Hope y'all like this .. it's not meant to be entirely sensible. Thank you for all the kind reviews! Phoebe - thanks again for the encouragement on this!

H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O* H5O

Steve's face was shimmering in front of him and Danny blinked a good many times, trying to see him better but it was as if a veil was hanging between them. Danny frowned when his vision refused to fully cooperate. He stared at Steve trying to understand the look on his friend's face but Steve's features swam sickeningly on and Danny fought to find the right word around a spasm of nausea. He finally settled on calling what he could see of it, Steve's patented aneurysm face. Danny thought he hadn't been able to identify it mostly - and despite his problematic vision - because he hadn't seen that look in a very, very long time.

More was wrong though. This wasn't right because Steve shouldn't be here though. Danny had watched him ... die ... be killed because ... why?

Choose.

Danny zoned out as he tumbled back into something he couldn't yet decipher as dream or reality. He tried to breathe as the threat bore down on him again. It was close. He could smell it and his nose wrinkled at the thick stench. It was right there. Right on top of him or standing behind him, their bodies barely touching. A reactive tremor ran through him from top to bottom for the ultimatum he heard next because with that came dim image of his children. Of Grace ... Charlie ... and he just didn't know why.

Choose.

Danny heaved in a juddering breath of air as the voice whispered inside his head. He'd chosen ... not to choose. There had been so much blood because Danny had failed him. Steve. The wraith had whispered threats as he'd forced Danny to do ... what? Sitting now in a hospital bed, Danny's frown deepened as his stare lengthened beyond Steve's silhouette.

There had been so much blood, it had been as dense and black as tar.

Had he done something ... or not? But not ... not what?

He couldn't remember anything more than a feeling of being helplessly trapped ... and being forced to ... Danny slowly shook his head in abject denial when Steve's face shimmered in front of him. No. No. He couldn't have done that and his gaze falling down to his hands as his thoughts trailed off into bleakness. It had happened because he'd refused to choose. And now? He didn't know what was real. Danny's warped vision was now swimming even more as he tried to focus and his hands blurred white where they lay in his lap. Despite that, Danny could see that his fingers were shaking badly and that similar vibrations were running up into his forearms.

"Danny?" The whisper was faint and Danny slowly looked back up into Steve's face wonderingly. That gauzy veil was still there but he could see that Steve's lips were moving. He might have been talking for awhile for all Danny knew; his hearing seemed as unreliable as his eyesight for some reason.

Steve's face.

How could it be? How could Steve be here. He'd watched Steve die. Maybe? Hadn't he?

Choose. But Danny hadn't chosen. He'd refused thinking he'd be the sacrifice ... and ... there'd been other consequences ...

There had been so much blood, it had been as thick and black as tar. Spilling down Steve's throat from his jugular. It had been on Danny's fingers ... it had coated the knife. His knife. It's knife. The knife he'd been pressed to use ... to choose ... or ... he remembered refusing. He remembered ... it laughing. A sluggish, thick guttural sound as black as Steve's blood as spilled to the ground.

You'll learn. You've promise. Let me show you ...

Shaking his head, Danny audibly choked at a lethal memory he didn't know if contrived or real.

"Danny?" Steve called his name again and Danny looked up, squinting through an onslaught of tears and trying to really see. This time wracked by doubts and fear, he raised his hand. With trembling fingers he reached out through the veil.

H5O* H5O

Steve sat on the side of Danny's hospital bed watching him struggle with a hopeful heart. Danny'd been fighting that catatonic state so hard and for so long, his breathing was labored and a nurse had come in to affix an oxygen cannula to his nose. In one hand, Steve wanted him to stop and rest. But on the other? He needed Danny back from wherever the hell he'd gone for just shy of two whole days. Thumbing the sweat away from his own upper lip and trying not to dwell on the fact that the Governor's child-hood friend had died whilst still babbling about boogeymen and lost souls, Steve couldn't escape the whispers which were still inside his head. He wanted to deny that something hadn't happened and yet, he simply couldn't. Even as he watched Danny, a part of his mind insisted on wandering away and he cringed at a remembered foul odor and what he'd felt as he'd escaped the place with Danny literally slung over his shoulder.

He startled when Danny's head moved and his eyes closed for few moments. That was a good sign and Steve grinned in relief when Danny's eyes re-opened because they seemed just a little less unfocused.

"Come on buddy, you can do it," he spoke to Danny in a normal voice, calm and authoritative. Grinning like a loon when Danny truly managed to look at him after expending what seemed to be a mammoth amount of effort. Nearly two days had gone by and that hadn't happened before. Steve waited with baited breath, thrilled when Danny didn't fall back into that faraway place but instead, scowled.

He scowled ... and Steve felt like laughing then as glazed blue eyes flickered across his face.

"There you go. That's better," Steve said, still grinning, alight with anticipation as Danny studied his face. It was easy to see that Danny was confused but in his usual display of obstinacy, digging in harder and refusing to let things go this time. "Good, you just keep on fighting, partner," Steve encouraged when Danny's scowl deepened exponentially as his eyes landed on Steve's mouth and this time, Steve blinked in surprise. Had Danny actually heard or understood him?

"Danny?" He asked, encouraged even when Danny slowly shook his head from side to side. The struggle was real and Steve got it, but he felt a pang of fear when Danny briefly closed his eyes only to open them to stare blankly at his hands ... hands that were beginning to shake very badly.

"No! Hey ... don't ... Danny!" Steve breathed out as Danny's expression altered back to one of that mind-numbing void.

Give him. Give. Him!

Steve shuddered at the low, evil tone he couldn't seem to purge out of his mind. He wondered if Danny was hearing the same thing - but differently. If demands were being made or threats lobbed in whatever place he was stuck inside. Some threat vicious enough which had sent his partner over the edge.

"God what am I thinking?" Steve complained under his breath. No one was there. Danny wasn't hearing anything in the hospital. And the only thing crazy was Steve's insane mental ramblings. Yet, if Steve was still being affected by some remembered thing which he couldn't hope to explain to Lou or to Danny's doctors, then Danny's catatonic state proved that whatever had been threatened or shown to him - no matter how inconceivable - had been one thousand times more traumatic.

The Governor's friend had died. But he was an old man ... anyway, where Danny was not. He was young. But if he were to believe the old man's ramblings, that was precisely why it wanted Danny. Well, that just wasn't going to happen and Steve set his jaw firmly as Danny continued to stare at his hands, his expression saying that he was on the verge of zoning out again. He couldn't allow that to happen.

"Danny ... Danny?" Steve said, his tone far more demanding. He froze when Danny looked up, his eyes still not quite tracking well, but Danny was definitely fighting. Steve had gotten him closer to surfacing even if Danny seemed to be teetering on an iffy edge as his eyes inexplicably filled with tears.

"Danny? What the hell is going on?" Steve murmured softly, not daring to move as Danny reached out to shakily touch his face, his chin, his neck. He was at a loss when Danny gave out with a soft, garbled sound and a tear broke loose to trace down his cheek. Danny's fingers were like ice against his skin as he awkwardly sketched a line with his index finger across Steve's jawline, falling down to his throat. When his fingers rested there, Danny stared even harder at Steve's neck before murmuring so softly that Steve barely heard him. Then, Steve wasn't sure he'd even heard the right thing.

"I didn't choose."

Steve automatically grasped Danny's fingers, holding his cold hand between his two warmer ones. He opened his mouth to ask and then switched gears because, what did it matter? Steve didn't understand what the words meant and as Danny's face changed yet again, Steve was already rightly guessing that Danny wouldn't know either. So it didn't matter; what mattered was making sure that Danny didn't give up.

"It's not real," Steve said. Saying that felt wrong though. Something had been there. Something that neither of them would ever be able to explain. For them, it was certainly real enough and part of Danny was still inside it.

"Killed you," Danny whispered sadly as his fingers curved around the palm of Steve's hand. Steve startled, his eyes widening in surprise.

"No! What?! You ... didn't ... it didn't," Steve objected quickly. He swallowed hard and shook his head in exasperation understanding now why Danny had needed to touch his face ... his neck. Until Steve had taken his hand away from his throat, Danny had been almost transfixed.

"It lied ... and it's not here. It wants to hurt us ... other people ... anyone it can. Hell, I don't know why ... that place? Where it is?" Steve stammered like a fool, not knowing what to say. He sounded damned stupid as he fumbled for words and reasons that wouldn't exist in this world. Maybe some day he'd check it out again or try to find out the history of the place in order to find out why it was a place of torment.

Now though? Steve didn't care at all. He only wanted to protect his own and he felt a ripple of anger as Danny's internal struggle continued.

"I don't know what happened, Danno," Steve admitted to the unspoken question rippling across Danny's face. "But you have to let it go ... it's not here." His voice cracked and he gripped Danny's fingers even harder, hard enough to make his friend wince in very real pain.

"It's not here ... I know that much."

"But it h-happened, d-didn't it?" Danny whispered after a long pause. "It was ... real?" Steve made a face as Danny looked around the hospital room before looking hard at Steve's neck as if reassuring himself that Steve was unscathed. Alive. His eyes were more clear with every passing second now, but they were still glassy and plagued by confusion.

"It happened ... but ... I don't understand?"

"Yeah, something happened," Steve agreed softly. "You listen to me." His voice was so low now, only Danny had hope of hearing each secretive word. "Neither do I - I don't get it. But listen to me, you feel this? This is real ...," he said, gesturing with his chin to their joined hands. To make his point, Steve practically crushed Danny's fingers between his own, eliciting a grimace and a hiss of pain.

"A-are you t-trying to break my h-hand?" Danny muttered. He was blinking like mad now, even if his eyes were still filled with tears, while even more streaked his cheeks. This time though, Steve was sure they were tears of relief and he managed a careful grin.

"If it wakes you the hell up ... I'll gladly break it in half," Steve replied as evenly as he could because Danny was returning that hold just as tightly. Hand in hand, they were hanging on to each other. Each commiserating silently on an experience they'd never be able to share to anyone else.

"Good," Danny half-laughed as he hid the sob in his tone by scrubbing his face hard with his free hand. He sniffed and cleared his throat hoarsely before repeating himself. "Good." He glanced down to the hand trapped between Steve's two. His knuckles were bleached white by the force of Steve's grip and he smiled wanly into Steve's eyes.

"You do that."

"Whatever it takes, Danno," Steve softly replied. "Whatever it takes."

~ End. ~