Disclaimer: Hawaii Five-0 and its characters do not belong to me.
...
A high-pitched screech shatters the silence of the night. His ears ring with the incessant sound, and he wakes up. He raises his head and his eyes search for the only thing important to him…
He looks up at his partner. The monitors were blaring, blinking rapidly. Something was wrong. Like really wrong. Yet Steve seemed oblivious through it all, remaining as still as a corpse. He gulps at the image his brain had unconsciously conjured. Burying the imminent fear, he clutches his partner's arm as he stands up on unsteady limbs.
"You hang in there, buddy. Hang in there, you hear me, Steve?!" He reaches for the call button. But he doesn't need to.
Chaos breaks through the room as a whole cavalry enters. Doctors and nurses. Frantic, faces scrunched in absolute tension.
His heart sinks.
"He's bradycardic. Bring in the crash cart!"
He doesn't quite feel anything any longer. Not the tears sliding down his cheeks, nor the tremor wrecking his whole body. Numb, that's what he was.
For a moment, it feels like he was back on that wretched road. He hears the loud screech of tires, the deafening shatter of glass. He's leaning over Steve's body, trying to revive his partner. He is pulled away by the paramedics as his partner remained dead. He is being relegated to a bystander as the paramedics attempted to restart Steve's heart...
"Clear!" He hears the echo of Doctor Pearce's voice.
No.. This can't be happening. Not again.. But unfortunately, here he was again, watching as they worked on his partner.
"Charging!"
"Clear!"
He stares as his partner jerks involuntarily, oblivious to the desperate attempts to bring him back. He prays. It was the only thing he could do. The only thing he was capable of doing as he struggles to figure out what just happened. He doesn't know..
He doesn't know what happened. He had fallen asleep next to Steve, his partner's hand in his. Steve had been fine.
He doesn't know what happened. The machines keeping Steve alive were doing their job.
He doesn't know what happened. Why had the machines started their shrill screaming?
He doesn't know what happened. Why was his partner no longer breathing?
He doesn't know what happened. Why was Steve's heart no longer beating?
"Time of death 3.48 a.m." Dr Pearce announced.
His heart sinks deeper. He doesn't think he heard right. Exactly.. That's it.. He must have heard it wrong.
He must have heard it all wrong.. But it doesn't explain why Doctor Pearce was looking at him with a sympathetic gaze.. Why had Dr Pearce stopped the resuscitation efforts..
He turned towards the monitors, refusing to accept the flat green line running across the screen. He fails to understand why the nurse was shutting off the machines.
In an instant, the piercing beep ceases.
The purge of the ventilator ceases.
The heartbeat in his chest ceases.
He swallows, watching as the nurses, one by one, leaves his partner's side. He tries to find his voice. Tries to speak. Tries to get them to return to his partner's side. To do something, anything. But he is unable to move. Unable to think. Unable to speak.
His eyes sting for some unknown reason. His chest feels like it was about to collapse into itself.
"Time of death 3.48 a.m." The words rang a little too loud, repeating itself harshly in the otherwise silent room.
"I'm sorry, Danny." Doctor Pearce approaches him, squeezing his shoulder. "There was nothing else we could have done."
No! NO! H*LL NO!
He wants to scream. There was no way his partner was dead. Steve can't die.. This wasn't the deal, damn it..
You have to save him!
He wants to yell but his breath hitches as he glaces towards his partner.
Wake up, Steve.. This isn't funny, buddy! This isn't funny...
In his head, he was shouting, but alas his lost voice remains nowhere to be found.
His vision blurs and he quite literally lost all will to live as he slumps forward, his head meeting the ground.
His partner was dead. Steve was dead. Steve was really gone.
Fantastic job, Daniel. You did it again..
His eyes slipped shut, probably the only act of mercy the universe had on him.
This was always how it was going to end for him...
...
He roused awake to the strong scent of antiseptic and soft beeping of the monitors next to him. He wasn't sure why an oxygen mask had been placed over his mouth. He wasn't quite sure what happened. Why he was in the hospital in the first place? His head throbbed, that was the only thing he was sure of.
He sat up, ignoring the dull ache in the back of his head.. Queen's Medical.. the room looked like the one in Queen's Medical. It was pathetic, wasn't it? That he was so well-acquainted with the hospitals in Hawaii that he could identify exactly which one he was in by the colour of the curtains.
What was he doing here, anyway? His first thought was undeniably that Steve had done something dumb to get him shot again.. Right?
No.. no.. His brain swam. Steve wasn't even around. Steve was god knows somewhere on some godforsaken war-torn country. He reached to the back of his head, rubbing the sore spot behind his ears. His vision was blurry, he realised.
Concussion, probably.. What the hell happened? Did he hit his head somewh…
His heart lurched as memory flooded him without warning, without mercy. He swallowed, the throbbing in his head intensifying. He couldn't move, his senses paralysed.
"Time of death 3.48 a.m."
A choked sob escapes his chest. He couldn't breathe. Ironically, he ripped off the oxygen mask on his face.
"Time of death 3.48 a.m."
Couldn't be true. It couldn't be true. Steve couldn't be dead…
"I'm sorry, Danny. There was nothing else we could have done."
He threw the blanket off him and swung his legs to the side of the bed. He pulled out the IV line inserted on the back of his hand, not feeling a damn thing as blood trickled from the needle prick. He was numb. Numb to anything else but the burgeoning ache in his heart.
"Time of death 3.48 a.m."
He begged it to stop, Dr Pearce's voice saying those words. Why did the words keep repeating in his head? The voice was too vivid.
He stood up, the rush of blood to his head sent him grappling for something to hold on to. He missed the edge of the table next to the bed, and almost ended up meeting the ground again when the door swung open and Kono sprinted to his side, bearing his full weight in her thin arms.
"Danny!" She yells almost directly into his ear, sending his brain into turmoil. "What are you doing? Come on, you need to…"
Steve. He was pretty sure he had meant to say the words out loud. Yet, he couldn't hear himself.
"St..eve." He tried again, this time, his voice came out as a soft, broken whisper.
"Danny, you.."
"Steve…Steve's dead?" He was sure of the answer. Yet, he couldn't resist asking. A small insistent part in his heart refused to believe the voices in his head. Refused to believe that Steve had left him so easily. "Is he..dead?"
He looked up into Kono's tearful eyes and he wished for oblivion to take him back. Anywhere. It didn't matter where as long as he didn't need to hear Kono's answer. Because there was only one reason for the tears in her eyes. And try as he might, he would never be ready to hear her answer.
"No.. please no.." Slumping into Kono's arms, he muttered uselessly as though it would change anything.
...