Chapter Thirty Seven "Let This Be a Dream"

Steve's life didn't flash before his eyes. He couldn't really see much anyway. But in that moment of silence—however brief it was; he couldn't tell—he did see one thing. It was an afternoon in the spring of 2012. Mary Ann had come down for a visit. She wanted to meet her nephew.

The three of them had spent the week together, and Mary was surprisingly good with children. Jack instantly liked her. At one point, Mary was trying to decide who he most looked like.

"I think he has Catherine's nose," she said as she sat on the couch with the baby Jack lying across her legs. "But he's definitely got your eyes," she went on. "And whose eyebrows are those?"

"I think they look like Johnny's," Steve said.

There was a long silence. "Have you talked to him recently?" Mary finally asked.

"At Dad's funeral," Steve said.

"That was over a year ago."

"Well the last time I saw you was last January, so..."

"But you've talked to me since then."

"Johnny doesn't want to talk to me."

"To be fair, I usually don't either, but that's my problem, I guess."

"Well, at least you're here."

"Does he even know? About Jack?"

Steve shook his head. "No."

Steve's mind drifted back into the present. He knew he had faded out because his brain was registering all the pain his body was trying to process. It was too much. He tried to breathe and found that only made it hurt worse. He tried not to feel the ever-growing blood pool beneath him. His shirt was completely soaked on the left side. He tried to move his arm to stop some of the blood, but the pain spiked and he drifted away again to the sound of frantic voices.

H-5-O

Johnny hadn't moved fast enough the first time. He wasn't agile or quick. He wasn't strong. And he certainly wasn't brave enough to do what he did next.

The last shot was meant for Steve's head, but it was redirected into Johnny's stomach. The surprise on Wo Fat's face was disregarded as Johnny made one attempt to wrench the gun from his hands. Apparently, surprise was on his side. The cold metal weighed down his arms, possibly influenced by the bleeding hole in his stomach, but Johnny wasn't thinking of that. At least not with both hands.

He turned the gun on Wo Fat before he'd been holding it more than a second, and with his left arm pressed against his stomach, Johnny squeezed off however many rounds were left in the gun.

Under normal circumstances, he couldn't have held his aim with two hands, but instead of knocking him out like it did the last time, getting shot was an adrenaline rush. So much so that he found himself still squeezing the trigger even when only the clicking of an empty cartridge could be heard.

He was interrupted at the sound of his name being called by someone he hadn't expected to see again. Johnny turned to see Catherine running toward him through the open door, but she wasn't looking at him. She had seen Steve.

Only then did Johnny allow himself to look down at his feet where his brother lay in a puddle of his own blood. The room tilted, and his knees hit the floor with a sickening splash. Johnny gasped for air, more due to the sight before him than his own injury. At least that's what he thought.

Johnny reached forward, as if to try to help Steve, but someone held him from behind. Strong arms wrapped around him, pressing into his wound, making him fall backward. He smelled something familiar, like a specific sort of fabric softener used on dress shirts.

"Danny..." he said.

"Yeah, yeah, it's okay," Danny said, but Johnny could hear the tension in his voice.

"Help him," Johnny gasped, hardly realizing he was speaking.

"He'll be okay." Danny was moving, rocking. He was trying to believe it himself. "Johnny." Danny's voice was softer now. "Hang on, okay? You're gonna be fine."

He was trying to distract him from the fact that Steve might not be fine. But he had to be. Johnny had taken a bullet, had shot a man, for this. Steve had to be okay.

Danny's presence was reassuring in a strange way. He was so much smaller that Johnny, but he was a lot stronger. He was almost as strong as Steve and more forceful. His grip over Johnny's stomach was like a tourniquet. Johnny knew he wouldn't let go.

By this time, the room was full of voices. Chin and Kono were there. Joe was there. And there were other people, EMTs, Johnny hoped, but he wasn't paying enough attention to be sure. He was looking at Steve's blank face. He wanted to reach out and shake him awake. He wanted him to open his eyes and say he was fine, even if no one would have believed it.

Johnny remembered asking Steve who would take a bullet for him and Steve not having an answer. Johnny had tried to be that person, but he was too late.

"I was too late..." he muttered.

Then he felt a hand on his arm. "No you weren't, son," Joe said. Then Johnny heard Joe's whisper to Danny, "He killed Wo Fat."

H-5-O

Johnny blinked several times at the bright fluorescent light. He hadn't seen that much light in a while. Two days, maybe. He tried not to think of where he was. He tried to believe it had all been a dream. That none of the events of the last two days had happened at all.

"Welcome back, JJ," Joe said, breaking through the clever ruse Johnny had created for himself.

He found that he was perfectly able to respond. "Hey, Uncle Joe," he said, trying to smile, but not succeeding.

"You... were very lucky," Joe said. "An inch in any other direction, and that bullet probably would have killed you."

"I got shot," Johnny said, not as a question, but as if he were trying to piece together what happened. "Where's Steve?" he asked, anxiety coating his words.

Joe hesitated.

"He's not dead," Johnny insisted. "Joe, he's not—"

"No," Joe interrupted. "He's not. He's... in surgery."

"But?"

"But the doctors are not exactly hopeful."

Johnny shook his head. "What—what does that mean?"

Joe sighed. "It means they don't know if he'll ever wake up," he said.

Johnny fell silent. Steve might never wake up. How was that even possible? He was unconscious so rarely anyway; this couldn't be any different.

"When can I leave?" Johnny finally asked.

"Soon." Joe nodded. "The doctor says you can probably walk out of here by morning. You were really very lucky."

"If you say so. I never really considered being shot luck."

"As if you had a lot of experience."

"Guess Steve didn't tell you about Portland in a couple years ago."

"No. What happened?"

Johnny shrugged and didn't reply. Joe left it alone for the moment. He wasn't about to question Johnny after all that he'd been through. So, he got up and squeezed Johnny's arm before heading for the door.

"Your girlfriend wants to see you," he said.

H-5-O

Catherine hadn't sat down since they got to the hospital. The doctors and nurses had learned not to get in her way after she stared down one in particular who said that Steve probably wouldn't make it. She was not interested in that opinion.

Mary Ann had come as soon as she got the call that they'd found Steve and Johnny. Jack had spent the entire time sitting in a waiting room chair, looking very confused, but not saying a word.

Danny, on the other hand, had divided his time between checking on Johnny and waiting for news on Steve. He had several reasons for this, but one was that when he saw Steve bleeding out all over the floor, he knew exactly what he would have said if he could have said anything: take care of my family.

Danny intended to do just that until Steve was able to do it himself. He didn't let himself think that he would do it even if Steve never did come back to them. That was a given, without a thought.

When Joe came to the waiting room and said that Johnny was awake, there was a collective sigh of relief. Catherine still didn't sit down, and Danny maintained his post by the door.

"Anna's with him," Joe said. "Anything new here?"

Mary Ann looked at him and shook her head.

Joe settled into a chair next to Jack, who had been disturbingly still for a two-year-old. He must have known something was very wrong. Joe leaned toward his chair.

"Do you remember me, Jack?" he asked.

The boy shook his head, keeping his mouth tightly shut.

"Well, that was a long time ago," Joe said. "I'm your Uncle Joe."

"You're not Daddy's brother," Jack said.

"No." Joe shook his head. "But your daddy and his brother and sister always called me Uncle Joe."

"Is Daddy gonna die?" Jack blurted, as if he could not longer contain the question.

Joe put his arm around Jack's shoulders, knowing he couldn't make this too complicated. He could lie and say that Steve would be fine, but he had seen what damage lying to children had in the past.

"I don't know, Jack," he said. "But your daddy is strong. Stronger than anyone. He won't give up that easy."

Jack looked up into Joe's eyes as if trying to decide whether to believe him. Then he looked down at his hands.

"Uncle Joe," he said.

"Yeah?"

"I'm scared... and hungry."

H-5-O

Steve didn't know where he was. He couldn't tell whether he was awake or not. He couldn't feel anything, but his mind told him he was in pain. He tried to move with no success. He tried to open his eyes, but he wasn't sure if they were already open or not.

He felt the typical sensation of being underwater, but that might have been that he was drowning in his own blood. He knew how plausible that would be. He'd been shot so many times; one could have hit a lung.

He didn't really feel like he was breathing, but he didn't feel suffocated either. Maybe he was dead already, and this was what it looked like. Felt like, rather. Steve wondered if he would see his parents there. Or if that would just be a projection of his own mind.

You can't stay here, a voice said.

It wasn't a voice Steve could place. He couldn't even tell if it were male or female. It echoed through his head, and sometimes he thought it sounded like Danny, other times like himself. Once it sounded like his mother. If he remembered her voice correctly, which he wasn't sure of.

You can't stay here! The voice shouted this time, and it really did sound like his mother.

Mom? Steve thought. He couldn't speak.

Wake up, Steve. Wake up.

Mom, is that you?

Wake up, Steve! The voice was a shout now. There were tears in it. And it didn't sound like his mom anymore.

Mom, are you there? Steve called in a last effort to figure out what the hell was going on.

Wake up. Just please wake up.

Johnny?

Steve tried to respond to the voice, but it drifted farther and farther away until he couldn't hear it anymore. He couldn't hear anything. He couldn't feel anything. He was underwater again, trapped in the nothingness.

He hoped it was all a dream.