As the last chapter was rather short, here is another one...

Chapter 13

Two weeks later, 70 days after the explosion

REHAB, Steve's room

Danny put the lunch tray aside and looked at Steve. After being in the rehab centre for two weeks now, his partner looked still exhausted and bone-tired. His days were stuffed with intense therapy sessions and between these sessions, he still mostly slept. This morning, Christian Turner had announced that Steve's power wheelchair would be delivered this afternoon. They would transfer him to his very own chair for the first time in the next hour. Danny remembered Steve's initial reaction to being strapped to the chair when the measurements for the customized additions had been made. Torture device had he called the thing that was supposed to make his life easier. Danny was anxious about Steve's reaction to the customized aid that would be part of his foreseeable future. Steve still hadn't made any progress regarding the movement of his arms since Turner had started to work with him. All he could do was awkwardly bend his elbows and roll his shoulders. The plan was to achieve as much control over his elbows and his forearms that he could control the joystick of his chair at some point in the future. For now, it didn't look very promising.

"What are you thinking?" Steve's voice brought him back to the present.

"I was wondering when your new chair will be delivered. How do you feel about it? Are you excited?"

"Honestly, I don't know why I should be excited about the delivery of a power chair at the moment. I mean, this thing is supposed to make my life easier, to give me some independence back but how should this work if I can't even transfer to this thing by myself? They use an electric hoist to lift my body off the bed every time I am wheeled to the shower and they do need this hoist to put me in the magic chair. When I'm finally in there I cannot do anything else than stare straight ahead and wait until somebody straps me to this thing so I don't fall off. And when I'm all secured, somebody else will move my chair and somebody else will decide where we go. This is worse than riding shotgun!"

Steve looked defiantly at Danny and Danny couldn't suppress a laugh. "Seriously, that's your problem? Because you cannot drive that thing by yourself you don't want it? Now you know how I feel about you driving my car all the time." The moment he finished the last sentence Danny wanted to take back the words but it was too late.

"Right, your precious car. I guess this problem is solved forever." Steve whispered bitterly.

"Oh babe, I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking. You know that I would love to ride shotgun for the rest of my life with you at the wheel of the Camaro if I could."

"I know, Danno. I apologize for my reaction. I'm just so incredibly frustrated. Every day since I've been here Turner is trying to wake up my stupid arms, but nothing happens. There is no improvement so far, I cannot control the uncoordinated bending of the elbows. The only progress since waking up at TAMC's ICU nearly 4 months ago is that my wrists are painfully burning most of the time now and that I can lift my elbows a couple of inches off the mattress. I really try to be optimistic, but sometimes it's pretty hard and the delivery of that awful chair today doesn't make it any better."

Danny was stunned by the honesty of his partner. Since being injured he had made a huge progress in opening up about his feelings, obviously a success of the sessions with the neuropsychologist Steve went through every other day. He just wanted to answer as the door opened and Dr Johnson entered the room. With him was Dr Mason, Steve's surgeon from TAMC.

The two men stopped at the foot of the bed so Steve could see them both.

"Hello commander, it's good to see you upright and talking. I am here to assess the condition of your cervical injury and decide when you will be ready for the planned surgery to repair your vertebrae. I guess you can't wait to get rid of that neckbrace, right?" Mason smiled at Steve and Danny.

"Dr Johnson sent me your newest scans yesterday and I must say, I am positively surprised about how much the swelling of neural tissue has receded. Actually we had scheduled the surgery to be performed in 6 weeks but I think we could operate you already in 3 to 4 weeks. How does that sound?"

"Every additional day that I'm confined in that thing is one day too much. I really am longing to be able to move and turn my head freely. If it was my decision you could perform the surgery today." Steve smiled at the two doctors.

Dr Mason nodded understandingly. "Your healing progress will make a huge step forward after the surgery. I understand that you feel like you didn't make any progress regarding the functionality of your arms, did you?"

"Yeah, I'm kind of frustrated. I feel like there is no development. I only can lift the elbows a couple of inches, that's all." Steve sounded hopeless.

"Commander, even if you don't feel like making any progress, the ability to lift your upper arms and roll the shoulders willingly is a huge progress for your muscles. They didn't work for the last three months, so you'll need to do a lot of training to activate them and regain some strength. I'm sure that your physical therapist Christian Turner explained that to you. Don't give up, even the smallest movement means training your muscles."

After Johnson and Mason had left the room, Danny looked at Steve. "See, you make progress! I really have no idea how I would react being in your position, but don't give up the hope. Those are baby steps, but nevertheless it's a step forward. Now, please try to look forward to your chair. If you can tolerate being sitting upright for more than an hour, I could take you outside to the park. I'm sure you would enjoy some sun on your pale skin, wouldn't you? And for that, you'll need to accept your ride."

The door once again opened and Dennis, Benedict and Christian Turner entered the room, Dennis pushing a brand new looking power chair.

"Hi, commander McGarrett, here we are with your new shiny power wheelchair. Doesn't it look great?" Dennis tried to cheer up the patient.

"Yeah, great", Steve still wasn't happy about his new aid.

"Dennis and Benedict will transfer you by hoist and then I will check if all the adjustments are in the correct position. If you feel good enough, we will keep you in the chair for 15 minutes before we get you back to bed." Christian Turner explained the procedure as Dennis started to prepare the harness for the hoist.

"We decided to add a high headrest. I know, I told you we wouldn't need that because your neckbrace but as you will be freed of this in the foreseeable future and your muscles will be very weakened after, Dr Johnson decided that you would need the extra support for your head. I'm sorry, there will be an additional strap to help you keep your head upright and I know how you feel about that, but be sure, you won't need for more than a few weeks."

Steve felt incredibly sad as the chair with all it's additions came into his field of vision. Most of the time he was able to turn out how very disabled he must look for other people with all his braces and splinted arms but as he looked at the chair, he only wanted to cry. A power wheelchair with special armrest and a headrest that implied that it's user couldn't even keep his head upright without a strapped support was just too much for him. Tears were dwelling in his eyes as he stoically accepted to be lifted into the hated device.

Outside REHAB, 4 weeks later

Steve was sitting in the power chair and closed his eyes. He enjoyed the warmth of the Hawaiian afternoon sun on his face. Since he had been lifted into his very own chair 4 weeks ago for the first time, a lot had changed. After hating the device passionately from the start he not only had learned to accept the thing but to enjoy it. He still didn't have enough motion control over his forearms to control the joystick, but he had really learned to treasure the freedom that the power chair gave him. By now he was able to remain sitting in the chair for close to two hours which meant he was able to leave the room to spend the breaks between therapy sessions outside when he felt good enough.

Today, Tani was with him to spend an hour in the sun. He loved those visits of the young officer. She was so refreshing and gave him the feeling that besides his physical condition nothing had changed. She happily discussed Five-0's latest success with her boss who seemed to enjoy the chatter. For a moment, it felt as if nothing had changed.

"Well, this will be our last minutes in the sun together for the next couple of weeks. My follow-up surgery to finally repair the shattered bones in my neck is scheduled for tomorrow. EMS will pick me up tomorrow at 5:30 am to get me to TAMC." Steve was excited and looking forward to the time after the surgery but at the same time also was very scared. He knew that Dr Mason and his team formed one of the most experienced team of experts in the field of spinal surgery but nevertheless there was still a risk.

"You know that you will be alright after the procedure, don't you?" Obviously, Tani had read his mind.

"Yeah, I know. It's just that I had so many setbacks since being injured that I sometimes forget to believe in success."

"Hey, it's Danny's part to be the negative one! Where's your unbelievable optimism? The next time we sit in the sun together I won't have to stand right in front of you for you to see me. I will sit by your side and make you turn your head to look at me, got it?"

"Let's hope for the best."

TAMC, ICU the next day

"Welcome back to Tripler, commander McGarrett. Before the nurses will prep you for surgery I will once again explain you the procedure. As you know, your C5 vertebra was shattered during the explosion. After you developed severe secondary swelling of the neural tissue, part of the bony elements had been removed for spinal decompression during emergency surgery 4 months ago. What we will do now is called spinal fixation. In simple words, we will replace the missing bone with a titanium plate and connect this part with the vertebrae above and below by screws and rods. After this fusion we put some kind of cage around the C4, C5 and C6- vertebrae to obtain vertical stability and prevent re-injury of the spinal cord from repeated movement of the unstable bony elements. This is a complicated procedure and not without risk but if it succeeds, it will give you full stability of the spinal column and a very acceptable range of motion of your neck back. We will keep you here 8 to 10 days after the surgery. Your rigid neck-and head brace will be replaced by a soft collar after the surgery and you will start with passive mobilisation of the neck the day after the surgery. The goal is to being able to turn your head from one side to the other independently without too much problems within a week. When you achieved that, you will be transported back to REHAB and continue your rehabilitation. Do you have any questions?" Dr Mason looked expectantly at his patient who had been arrived 20 minutes ago.

"How soon will we know if the surgery was successful?" Steve sounded a little scared.

"The very unlikely situation that we won't be able to stabilize your spinal column sufficiently is something that shows itself during surgery. We talked about the risk of this to happen. There is a 2% risk that we cannot fuse the remaining bone parts. In that case you will sustain further paralysis, probably from the neck down and your head will need to remain externally stabilized by orthopaedic devices for the rest of your life. But as I told you already, your scans are looking very good and I assure you that the surgery will have a promising outcome. Don't be scared, commander. You're going to be alright." Dr Mason smiled softly.

"Ok, I just want to get over it. I trust you to know what you're doing, so please, get started." Steve closed his eyes and hoped that he would wake up in a few hours without his head in another new contraption.