AN: Here she finally be! I hope this epilogue gives you all the warm holiday feelies.

I began writing this almost a year ago and it's crazy to see it finished. Thank you so much for your kind reviews and reading along on this emotional journey.

Peace and love to you all!

'We will toast the coming year,
It will surely come before we know it,
And the next upon its heels.
But within this life is splendor tangled
Like Christmas lights unreeled.'

"It's A Wonderful Life" ~ John Lucas

~OL~

It shouldn't surprise him, but it does.

And really, Danny's had quite enough of surprises these last few weeks. It shouldn't surprise him not so much because of the situation he now finds himself in, but because thinking he can trick someone this intuitive into believing everything is hunky dory borders on insanity. He should know better.

But still it surprises Danny to look up from a hospital chair at the sound of a distinct gait, that familiar clop of boots.

The gait moves at a brisk tempo—somehow the most surprising part of all. Urgency clips each step.

Accompanying the boots are a frown, a pair of worried eyes, and a motorcycle helmet tucked under one arm. Danny's blood pressure has been surprisingly calm the whole day, but at the sight it spikes.

"Chin." Danny jolts to standing when his friend enters the waiting area. He ignores a flapped hand, entreating him to stay seated. "What are you doing here?"

Stupid question.

Chin doesn't even blink. He throws the helmet into a nearby chair and marches that determined gait all the way over to Danny's spot on the far right, the closest he could get to the restricted access OR doors without being in the way. He's all by himself, especially since this surgery was booked so soon after Christmas, in what is technically most peoples' vacation time. No other patients or their families wait for surgery.

Danny tries to fend off the tumultuous expression in a beeline straight for him. "Chin, look—"

Chin's march quickens until Danny suddenly finds himself whisked into a pair of tense arms.

"Danny," Chin breathes, and he sounds like he's run a marathon. Tone shaking. It's all he says at first, or maybe all he can say. "Danny…"

Danny reciprocates after a moment, palm in a slow circuit on his friend's back like he does for Steve sometimes.

"Grace called you?"

Chin shifts away to grant space, but he keeps a hand on Danny's arm. "Last night. She didn't want you to be alone for this."

"Traitor," Danny mutters, his tone too warm to fool either of them. "She's taking Charlie to a movie and then the beach, which should keep him relaxed enough not to worry about where we've gone or why."

"Still under the knife?"

"It's day surgery, a 'piece of cake,' which I'm pretty sure they told me just for reassurance." Danny inhales a deliberate breath. "Docs came out a few minutes ago to say Steve made it through his three-hour surgery with flying colours. They're taking him off anaesthesia now."

But Chin's jaw works just a little too much and Danny clutches him in return.

"Thanks for coming," he prompts, to snap Chin out of the odd spell. "Please don't be mad we didn't tell you. We just wanted to find out Steve's results first, which thank God were good news."

Chin shakes his head, eyes fixed on Danny's face. Eyes that won't stop darting, searching. Danny half wonders if Chin is about to break down right there in the empty waiting room.

No, not just his face…

"I'm fine, Chin." A beat later, Danny sees something other than concern altogether. And that the eyes have locked on his shoulder. "Hey, really."

Chin tugs him back in for another bear hug. "Danny."

"Fine, you hear?"

"She almost killed you."

Chin's hand strays to the left shoulder of Danny's T-shirt, the mangled wad of white tissue underneath that will never fade. The memory of being nabbed from that burning car won't either, along with the out-of-nowhere shot to said shoulder.

"But she didn't."

"Why…" Chin breaks off. Swallows, starts again. "Why didn't one of you call us? I had to find out from Duke, after phoning to congratulate him on another granddaughter."

It's not an accusation so much as a deep, entrenched horror. Danny feels stupid all over again, when he realizes Chin must have felt the scar tissue during his visit two weeks ago and not known what it was.

They told Chin and Kono on calls that Danny had been injured and Steve too traumatized to continue this line of work, prompting their retirement and move from LA, but not details.

Cat's out of the bag now. In multiple ways.

Danny closes his eyes at Chin's hand, looped around to cup the back of his head. It's the hug he wanted after everything happened in April, the support of being carried by someone else's emotions and strength.

Hard as it has been—one of the hardest things he's ever done—Danny's learning to let go, and he does so now into the steady press of Chin's broad hand around those same ribs that cracked under a fist's cruelty. Into the sharp cheekbone where it brushes his temple. The stroke of Chin's fingers on the scar tissue. Each motion is gentle, careful, and it gives him room to breeeeeathe.

Danny unwinds with a whoosh of release.

"Because we weren't thinking straight," he whispers. "I'm sorry. So sorry, Chin."

Chin doesn't say anything more, for they don't need to. He calms slowly but surely with the grace that became so comforting over eight years of working with him. Danny pats the bony spine.

"We're okay, Chin. Steve and I are better than okay now, much more stable than we've been in years. Therapy and a slower pace of life have done wonders."

Chin's breathing pauses, as if to assess that for himself.

Then—"Didn't I tell you I'd be here before you saw it coming?"

Danny huffs at the playful admonition and steps back. "Touché."

"I mean it, Danny. No more secrets."

"No more secrets." Danny smiles. "I'm glad you're here, though sorry you had to make such a long drive of it."

Chin rolls his eyes with a fond grin. And that, well, that doesn't surprise Danny at all. No translation required.

"Mister Williams?"

Danny turns to see Dr. Nassir in fresh green scrubs at the doors. He rushes towards her, relieved that she changed out of the blue ones she wore when Steve was wheeled away after a sappy hug to Danny over the bedrails.

He isn't sure he could handle even a dot of Steve's blood, especially not on someone else.

"How is he?"

Chin asks the more pressing question. "Can we see him?"

Dr. Nassir throws a look so full of empathy at Danny that he rocks back on his heels a few inches. "He's tumour free and healthier than he was when he walked in, Mr. Williams."

Danny's told her, but he says it again. "Danny, please."

"He's doing great, Danny. In fact, with the lack of pressure the lumps were previously putting on his abdominal wall, he should experience a huge reduction in nauseous spells and persistent fatigue." She nods at Chin. "Steve is just coming off anaesthetic now, so he might be out of it for an hour or two. But you're welcome to sit in his post-op room."

"Thank you." Danny runs a hand through already frazzled hair and feels a giddy mushroom cloud of laughter well up in him. Chin echoes it with a chuckle. "Thank you so much."

Danny shakes the doctor's hand while she leads them behind the doors to a small room just off the recovery floor. It's a shoebox—but it has a window. Danny's never been more grateful to see evening sunlight, in amber swoops that kiss a painting of violets on the wall next to the bed.

Granted, he doesn't notice that right away thanks to Steve himself, laid out on his back with eyes closed, blanket pulled up over a mâché of fresh bandages on his chest.

Monitors snake from each arm in a delicate dance of machinery and beeping. He's rosier than Danny expects, cheeks pink.

"I didn't notice how pale he's been," says Danny under his breath. "But I see the improvement even now."

Chin places a heavy hand on Danny's shoulder when he collapses into the bedside chair. "Hell of a way to ring in the new year."

"You have no idea."

Chin strokes Steve's knee, then Danny's. "I'll give you two a minute."

"No, Chin, you don't have to…"

"Danny. Listen to me." Chin kneels so Danny's not craning his neck to make eye contact. His friend's tone, while tender, brooks no argument. "You've been hyper focused on what Steve and everybody else needs for months. Years. Let me do this for you."

Danny deflates. "Are you sure?"

"You bet I'm sure. I'll be back in a bit. Besides, I have to go pick up your gift anyway."

"A gift? You didn't have to do anything, Chin. The bonfire that night was plenty."

Mischief flashes through Chin's eyes. "Oh, trust me. This gift has been a long time coming. I'm off to buy some coffee too—I need it after that ride."

Coffee or food of any kind probably isn't allowed in here, but Danny's touched by the concession of privacy, more than he can verbalize. So he doesn't try, just squeezes the hand on his knee before Chin springs to his feet.

"You need anything, Danny? You eaten today?"

A hot balm rushes into Danny's face, the sensation of being able to see, in twenty-twenty vision, how loved he is. "I'm fine, Chin. A water would be good though, thanks."

With sloppy salutes at them both and a clasp of Steve's limp hand, Chin beats a retreat out the door.

Quiet settles around Danny, the only sounds being Steve's faint breathing around a cannula, steady chirps from a halo of monitors, and birds trilling outside the window.

"We made it through, huh?" Danny laughs again, and it's the lightest he's felt in ages.

He leans forward to fold his arms on the bed, appreciating the lack of bedrails this time, right elbow snuggled close against Steve's left. With his cheek resting on his wrists, Danny can watch Steve's eyes tick under his lids, the way he's breathing deeper and quicker as the painkillers in the IV kick in.

Danny thinks of Charlie, who will visit more on weekends, almost every weekend—an arrangement Rachel accommodated and encouraged far more than Danny could have dared to dream. Of all the things he and Steve will get to do with the kids and each other.

They have time to watch each other grow old. To just be.

The faint whistle of Steve's breath becomes a mirror for Danny, whose eyelids grow heavier the longer he watches his partner.

"You saved my life, you know that? Even before I came to Hawaii, my world didn't have the hope, the warmth that you bull rammed into it that day you knocked on my door."

Something tiptoes through the foyer of Danny's heart upon these words leaving his mouth, murmured without rush or anxiety to Steve when he looks better than he has in months.

It's a fledgling emotion when Danny catches it, not very loud or noticeable, before its satin wings whisper against his spirit. He can't name it right away.

"Our happy ending isn't getting shattered after all. Not this time—it lasts."

~OL~

A quagmire blanket drapes over every inch of the world, a pleasant kind of weight that keeps Danny's eyes shut and his nose buried in something soft. Hot streams trickle down his head and back up in fanned pressure points. Down they come…reversing direction…trickling down…

"…current location where I'm stationed is secure, that's all I can tell you."

"Worth a shot."

"You haven't changed a bit, boss."

"Neither have you—and I'm never getting rid of that, am I?"

A cackle. "You'll always be my boss."

Danny longs to give himself over to the blanket of nothingness, but a voice catches his barely-there attention. Like a photograph pulled from a dusty top shelf. It doesn't match deeper ones surrounding him.

Streams tangle in locks of hair at the top slope of his head, mussing through thicker strands.

The something under his nose vibrates with a hushed laugh. "…After what we kept from you, I think the chewing out is deserved."

"Nah, we love you too much to follow through on that."

"Ditto, Steve. Though I see the toll it's taken on you guys."

The largest stream floods over Danny's crown. Just standing still for a beat. Then it undulates along with ripples in the downy blanket keeping Danny under.

Pa-pum…pa-pum…a pulse. It's someone's pulse.

"Actually, we're sleeping better than we have in decades, this last week or so."

"I'm glad to hear it." Skin swishes on fabric. "We'll always worry about you two."

"Was he awake when you left? He alright?"

"Awake and talking to you, I think."

Danny wants to open his eyes, once he drifts close enough to the surface of real thought. But then the trickles start up again and he loses time to a lazy fog, callouses in a rasp on his scalp.

They slide from his head to just over his eyes, thumbing at the bridge of his nose and exposed lip of his right ear. That palm sets the tempo, heartbeat waves lapped at this content cocoon it's forming.

"You with me, baby?"

Danny hasn't heard that word directed at him for a long, long time, especially not in a tone that thick with affection and emotion, not even when he was with Rachel. Oh so very long. And if it was said in their home back in New Jersey, it usually possessed a sly or biting undertone that Danny still tenses to hear, especially in a woman's voice.

But this time the word wraps around Danny like the velvet pillow spread out to display a jewel. He feels…treasured. Truly rested. Like he's valued to the point that he can drop his guard.

Steve doesn't stop the petted head massage even when Danny drags his eyes open, a small luxury. His muscles turn to playdough. Though Danny blinks up into Steve's surprisingly lucid face and Steve blinks at Danny's half lidded eyes, they don't say much at all for a minute or two.

The contrast from a month ago is enormous. It's also a much more pleasant way to wake up, knowing his partner lays safe and sound not an inch away. No more empty calendar boxes.

Someone repositioned the bed at some point—probably Chin, vanished once again—allowing Steve's torso to sit upright. Steve, likewise, apparently adjusted Danny's head while he dozed so that his temple now sits half cradled on Steve's ribs and half in the crook of his right elbow. It puts Danny within arm range which, knowing Steve, might have been the sole reason he asked Chin to raise the bed in the first place.

It also can't be comfortable, not with the weight of Danny's cranium so close to new stitches, but Steve looks too pleased about this improved state of circumstances to argue with. He's in sweats and a T-shirt now, on top of the covers and disconnected from machinery. It's pitch black out the window.

"You should have woken me so we can go home. Sorry for tapping out."

Steve untangles a knot of hair near Danny's forehead. "No, I'm glad you got time to rest. I called Grace and she'll put Charlie to bed."

"Content sleep," says Danny in a mostly awake slur, trying to explain why his limbs feel so noodle-y. "No pain?"

"No pain, Danno. The meds are making me a little foggy too."

"Glad y'r okay."

Steve's eyes crinkle. "I'm glad too."

The abrupt reality hits Danny, that he was neither present nor conscious when Steve woke up from liver transplantation surgery. He didn't get to see how Steve felt about this irreversible change in those initial few minutes, the shock fallout from being told he lost half a vital organ.

But now…

Now Danny can look all he wants, and there is zero trace of trauma or pain or even weariness over this latest session under the knife. Steve seems to have no desire to look at the bandages or poke around the incision site. Scars will grow over the old one, a double layer.

Steve isn't concerned about this at all. He just grins that cotton candy grin and studies Danny.

Nurses also took off the pulse oximeter while Danny slept, so Steve's index is free and gentle in its trek around the side of Danny's neck. Instead of putting him back to sleep, the touch lurches him into better awareness.

This is thanks to a steady gaze from Steve, his eyes full of matching affection, and the indisputable sense that all is right with the world. Danny lifts his head off Steve, but his partner's hand stays in his hair.

"Was that Chin?" asks Danny. Then his voice dries. "Where's the big Christmas surprise?"

Steve's eyes light up this time, so stark with joy that Danny sits fully upright.

"I think our gift snuck off to smuggle in some contraband."

There's a lot to parse through in that statement. Danny doesn't get the chance and doesn't mind a bit, in the end.

"Steve, what do you mean our gift—"

"Did someone order cake?"

With the benefit of full consciousness, Danny can hear the voice now in crystal clear definition. Melodic, impish, incapable of containing its laughter.

It launches Danny to his feet and halfway across the room so fast that Steve's fingers pull out a few hairs.

"Kono!" Danny barely leaves her enough time to drop grocery bags on the floor before he yanks her close. "You…we…I can't believe you're here!"

Kono's sprightly laughter muffles into his shoulder and doesn't stop for a good long while, until they taper off into happy humming sounds. And sniffling. Lots of sniffling. She and Danny sniff a duet while they sway from the force of impact. Her arms are just as strong as they used to be, wiry but unbreakable. Longer hair tumbles against his cheek.

"I can't believe it either," she says, soft, in a way that encompasses more than just her presence.

Chin's arm drapes around them both and Steve must feel left out of this group huddle because he reaches over until he can grip a handful of Danny's shirt hem. The weight of their bodies against Danny is such a heady sensation that he fears for a moment his knees might give out.

They don't, thanks to Chin and Kono who hug him too tightly for that. Danny rubs Chin's arm with a trembling hand.

"Thank you for this gift."

Chin kisses all three of their shoulders, one by one. "This visit was a present for me just as much as you guys."

Danny pulls away after a few minutes, holding Kono at arm's length out of a paternal instinct to ensure she's okay. "Look at you! What's life like on the underground crime fighting scene?"

"Hard." Her eyes go soft too. "But more rewarding than you can imagine. And I'm not technically here—my flight itinerary says New York, if anyone asks."

A new scar mars Kono's cheek, a short but deep nick, along with a nasty, jagged gray shape on her forearm where she's rolled up her sweater sleeves. She's far thinner than the last time they saw her on calls, all ribs. Steve's hand cinches at Danny's waist; he's noted this too.

Their faces are all wet but none of them care. Danny laughs again. He's weightless with relief. Kono can't seem to let go of his arm and it keeps him grounded amidst the typhoon of emotion.

Chin reaches down with a sniff of his own. "I brought us something better than water."

"Champagne?" Danny watches him tug a bottle out of the bag, then a truly boggling assortment of food. They retrieve two spare folding chairs and form a motley party around the hospital bed. "Steve's on meds."

"It's sparkling grape juice, don't worry."

"The doc said earlier I need to boost my low sugar levels anyway," says Steve, exchanging a look with Chin like he's in on a particularly good joke. He helps Kono lay a blanket across his legs to act as their 'table.'

Danny flails a hand. "What's with the last supper though?"

"Well, it's almost a new year," says Kono. "Plus a new, cancer free Steve. We have to count down in style."

"It's not even nine pm."

"Really, Danny?" Chin elbows him while he begins distributing food—and a confetti cone hat bought specifically for Steve. Steve just smiles dopily and lets Chin loop the string around his chin. "We figured you of all people would get it."

Danny doesn't for a minute, still dazed at the sight of their quartet in a loose, messy huddle. Noise makers at the ready. At how comfortable they are, free of stress and burdens they buckled under years ago. Despite how worn Kono and Steve look, physically, Danny can't help but conclude that all four of them have undergone some kind of radical growth—at a heart level, he doesn't think they've ever been this healthy.

The original four reunited at last.

None of them voice this out loud, but their eyes are watery and their smiles blinding.

Lastly, Chin fishes a tablet out of the bag and props it upright on Steve's ankles. It's already playing some local news channel, where a reporter shouts to be heard over a huge crowd around a screen clock. It's a televised New Year's celebration, a countdown to midnight somewhere…

Comprehension dawns right as Kono hands Danny a plate of fruit and chocolate cake—

"It's almost midnight in Newark."

"Ding, ding, ding," Steve teases. "Give the man a prize."

Danny looks around at them all in fresh wonder, moved. "You…you remembered that it's almost a new year in Jersey."

Chin winks. "As if we would forget."

They eat fat slabs of chocolate cake and drink too much grape juice while Chin tells them stories of Christmas at their house and Kono regales them with misadventures and Steve looks tired but full in a different way and Danny just sort of sits there, paralyzed by what feels like a dream.

It's too good to be true—but it is true. His brain takes longer to soak it in, since Steve's already chatted with Kono and had time to process.

Danny sets his fork down. Blinking fast. Steve's hand is there in a second, thumbing through his hair again.

"To ohana." Kono holds up her plastic glass in a toast. "Wherever they may go."

Steve goes next, flush red at their ohana being together again. "To making it home."

"To a fresh start," says Danny. He taps his cup against Steve's. "And old friends who made it possible."

Chin nods. "To—"

Whatever he's about to contribute will remain a mystery—

"What's all this? There's no food allowed in post-op rooms!"

—For just then an older nurse appears. He waves Steve's discharge paperwork in shock.

Kono stands to do damage control and Chin hastily tries to offer the nurse some cake as a bribe—to which he yells in outrage. It's a cacophony of noise, fueled only by Steve's snickers. He doesn't do them for very long, breaths shallow to avoid pressing bandages, but he looks drunk on the sheer ridiculousness and warmth of it all.

This is also the best New Year's they've ever had, hands down.

On screen, the newscaster begins his five minutes-to-go countdown.

"Whatcha thinking about, sleeping beauty?" Despite the tease, Steve's brows beetle and he caresses a set of knuckles down Danny's jaw. Their voices hover under the volume of the argument.

Danny holds his breath. Steve watches with intent eyes, waiting. More patient than anyone could have imagined he'd become. If only their friends and teammates from ten years ago could see him now, let alone his SEAL team.

Danny reaches across to capture Steve's other hand.

It's powdery clean from disinfectant and alcohol swabs. Long digits curl loosely around Danny's smaller but thicker ones until Danny can't tell which heartbeats are his and which belong to Steve.

It slips out all at once, uncensored:

"They say when someone wakes up, you're supposed to be relieved. Act happy, a little bit."

Steve stops breathing too.

Danny said these same words to this same person eight and half months ago almost to the day. The role reversal isn't lost on Danny, how he was the one in the bed and Steve the one holding his hand in a bedside vigil.

Yet in some ways it's not a role reversal. Not at the level Danny's asking this silent question.

Steve's answer arrives in the form of a sigh. And the sigh itself comes low and beautiful, like a singer's long note to finish an opera performance, the final curtain of a final show. Danny imitates the deeper breath when Steve takes it after, one of his favourite sounds.

Likewise, Steve's index presses deeper into Danny's wrist, feeling the heartbeat.

"I don't know if I've ever truly been able to say it before…" Steve's grin widens with a delighted wobble. "But I am happy, Danno. How can I not be, when I've got you?"

Danny from eight months ago might have cried at this. Might have broken down sobbing and soaked those new stitches, courtesy of a Steve who's open about his love now without a speck of embarrassment about it.

But present day Danny understands that some emotions fire all the way past tears to a cavern at the back of the soul, reserved for those moments that stick with you until you die. The kind that glow with their own energy source, renewed by love whether in memory or real time.

Scars don't fade—but neither does joy.

Present day Danny reaches up to cup Steve's face.

"Oh here we go!" Kono jumps back to the tablet. "It's starting! Chin, Nurse Sanchez, they're about to count down!"

Danny keeps his eyes on his partner, the peaceful eye of a flurry around them. "Steve?"

Steve leans into this simple touch. "Yeah, Danno?"

"I'm not sure I understood what real happiness was before I met you."

Scruff tickles Danny's fingertips when it shifts into a smirk. "Does this mean you'll be happy with me even when we're elderly and deaf and you're yelling at me to turn up the TV?"

"Even then."

Sanchez has apparently thrown in the towel and is curious, despite himself. He leans over Steve's legs to see the screen. Giant numbers sparkle in time with fireworks.

"New Jersey?" the nurse asks. "Really?"

Kono and Chin aren't fazed. She's already making a racket, two noisemakers crammed between her teeth, rolling and unrolling at top speed. Chin hands one to Sanchez.

Then he holds up his fingers and ticks them off. "In ten…"

"What about pizza nights where I conspire with Grace to put pineapple your half?" Steve goads.

Danny's smile picks up steam. He has to raise his voice to be heard over the noise. "Maybe I'll learn to love it."

"Eight…"

"Even when you have to lay out my socks in the morning because I forget where everything is?"

"I'll trick you into wearing the unicorn cat ones Grace bought for my birthday."

A laugh escapes Steve, and Danny withdraws his earlier statement—this is his favourite sound. "Gray hairs and all?"

It's a joke, Steve clearly having his fun about the full mental picture. His face bears some of the same emotion Danny wrestles with, so overwhelmed that there's no choice left but to sit down at love's feast and dig in.

"Five…"

Danny's thumb whispers across Steve's dimpled cheek.

"Four…"

There's that emotion again.

And Danny finally recognizes it—excitement. He's excited, almost restless. It's one of the few times in his life he's felt eager anticipation about the future, expecting the best instead of the worst.

"Three…"

He catches a taste of what's to come, decades of moments and hugs and presents and tears yet to be lived. It tastes like triumph, like reaching the end of a very long race just when he thought the hill would never end.

And here they are in a smooth coast down the other side.

"Two…"

Danny's tongue says in unison with his heart—

"Can't wait. I wouldn't miss it for the world."

"ONE!"