Disclaimer: Hawaii Five-0 and its characters do not belong to me.
...
"I.. I am now. I'm okay, Danno."
He didn't quite believe Steve's words, not even a little bit. Weariness coloured Steve's piercing gaze, his face taking on a greyish pallor. The lines on Steve's face were somehow more prominent, as though he had aged a few years from the last time he had seen his partner. Steve's jawline, too, was slightly more defined, evidence of the few pounds his partner had lost and he was pretty sure it wasn't through any healthy means. Steve wasn't fine, he was more than convinced.
Besides, something more told him his partner wasn't completely okay. A distant memory of his friend breaking down, crying. Was that a dream? Had something really happened?
"Ly..ing." He inhaled, resisting every urge to pull out the nasal cannula that he knew was giving him the much needed oxygen but was annoying him all the same.
Steve afforded a small smile, one that managed to put his heart to ease just a little. "I'm really okay. Taking good care of your liver too."
Liver? What liver...
His brain was in a foggy mess. Why he was here in the hospital, he didn't quite know. What was that look in Steve's eyes? Guilt? What for? What happened?
Taking good care of your liver? What did that mean?
His eyes momentarily slid shut, fatigue threatening to pull him under.
"Buddy? You still with me?" Steve's gentle voice tugged him back to the surface.
He felt the grip around his fingers tighten, and he fought to keep his eyes open. "Wh..a..ppened?"
He watched as his partner looked conflicted for a moment. If he knew Steve as well as he thought, Steve must be blaming himself for whatever happened. That look on his face was too easy to read. But he was also sure that even if it was one of Steve's crazy, insane, ridiculous stunts that had put him in the hospital, there was not an ounce of doubt in him that he was still alive only because of his partner. Because he could always count on his partner.
"You..umm Danny..that night." He watched his friend intently, the look that fleetingly crossed Steve's eyes was something he, surprisingly, couldn't read. Must be the unrelenting exhaustion and splitting dizziness. "You were bleeding internally, the trauma to your spleen from the crash..You had to go through another surgery to stop the bleeding. It was bad.. You also developed an infection.. pneumonia, we uh..I almost lost you, buddy."
That had to be the most cliff notes version of all cliff notes. Trauma to the spleen? Pneumonia? Well at least now it made sense why everything hurt. Did Steve just say crash? Figures, Steve's crazy driving must have landed him here. Maybe now he actually had a case for driving his own car. Silver linings.
"N..t you..r fa..ult." He said.
"Except it is." Steve's voice cracked, his eyes red from what he guessed was his partner holding back tears. He made the SuperSEAL cry? For real? "You crashed the plane for me, ignored your injuries for me, you gave me your liver.. Danny.. If it wasn't for that, we wouldn't be here."
Plane? It wasn't his Camaro, it was a plane?! Okay, definitely Steve's fault then. His brain tried to catch up with the additional information.
Plane..crash..liver..
Right, right.. The shooting, the plane, the iconic or rather disastrous crash on Waikiki Beach, Steve was dying... But apparently not anymore.. He isn't dying, not dead either. He's here, next to him. Looking not too far away from death's door but at the very least still walking and talking. His partner was alive...
"If he doesn't receive a new liver in the next few hours, he will die."
"Let me just save everybody some time, Steve and I, we're the same blood type so let's uh..let's just use mine."
Right, the surgery. He'd gone through the surgery to give Steve his liver. Good, good, Steve was alright. He was okay. As long as Steve didn't reject the liver, he would be alright. He would be...
"If this liver is going to come with your negative attitude, I swear to god, Danny, I will cut it out myself."
The memory assaulted him gradually but with an unrestrained violence. He breathed, not quite getting enough oxygen as his heart retorted harshly in his chest.
"You alright?"
"M'ka..y." He breathed again, or tried to against the ache ravaging his chest.
"Take it easy, buddy. You just woke up after 4 days." Steve said softly. "Relax, alright? Let me get the doctor."
Crap... Four days?
"Gra..c? Cha..lie?" He stubbornly persisted through the onslaught of agony ripping through his body and the equally painful memories that flooded him.
"He's a kid, I promise you, Danno. You give him time.." He felt tears well up in his eyes. He knew how that sentence ended but it didn't hurt any less.
"Hey.. it's okay, Danno. They're both alright, buddy. Everyone's okay, you don't worry about a thing. Grace, she's here everyday. She left a while ago but she'll be back tomorrow, alright? Charlie, he's not allowed in the ICU but you'll get to see him soon, once you're better, okay?"
"...He's gonna grow up to hate you just as much as I do."
"Ti..red." His eyes slid shut, involuntarily releasing the tears pent up in his eyes.
He felt Steve's warm fingers wipe off the tears gently, a muffled whisper right before he slipped away. "It's alright, buddy. Don't fight it, you rest. I'll be right here. I love you, buddy."
He wanted to believe that his partner meant those words. Why couldn't he?
...
He gently brushed his daughter's hair, battling the lethargy spreading through him just so he could stay awake a little longer. It was getting increasingly harder, especially after the nurse had injected something into his IV. His eyelids drooped shut, but his hand, as though moving on auto-pilot continued to slowly caress Grace's head.
He couldn't yet bury the throbbing guilt in his chest. Grace's eyes had been difficult for him to look into. The sorrow in them that he knew he had been the cause of. Her tears that had refused to stop flowing even as he repeatedly assured her he was okay. It had taken him quite a while to calm her down. Overwhelming relief and likely suppressed emotions over the last several days had triggered an emotional breakdown when he had called her by his favourite nickname for her.
"Monkey?"
That was all it had taken to crush the fortress that Grace had built around her. He watched as his daughter's lips quivered, her shoulders shaking as she stood awkwardly at his side, not daring to hug him.
"Come here." He had whispered, holding his hand out to his daughter to assure her it was okay. He wanted nothing more than to hold her in his arms.
She gently bent over him, burying her head in his shoulder as she tried to stifle the sobs. Whatever pain that came from her skull resting on his body was minuscule to the ache in his chest from where his heart crashed, tearing itself into pieces as her heaving sobs filled his ears. He had done this to his little girl.
"I'm so..ry, Grace." He breathed. "Sorry..So sor..ry." How was he ever going to tell her how sorry he was for putting her through this? How did he ever make up for this?
He had looked at his ex-wife, who was still standing at the door after accompanying their daughter to his room. She moved a little hesitantly towards him. A part of him expected an accusing look from her, he deserved the berate that was coming. He recalled her famous last words before handing him the ultimatum - his job or his marriage.
"If you're going to put me through, this, I can take it, Danny. But I won't let you put our daughter through this! She is not going to watch her father say goodbye one day and never make it home! She is not going to be stuck in some ICU, crying for her Daddy to come home. I know what that feels like and I don't want that for my daughter."
The words were true after all. Rachel had ended up predicting the future with 100% accuracy. He waited for it, for the words to come rolling, for the accusations to kick in full swing. But it didn't come. Instead she had softly coaxed her daughter, assuring her everything was alright. She had looked at him with genuine concern and gentleness in her brown eyes. Telling him that she was glad he was okay.
Weird, he thought.
It must have been a pretty darn close call. And that made him feel all that much worse towards his daughter.
She had refused to leave his side. Her hands had refused to let his go. Even when she was clearly tired, yawning almost every 4 seconds, she had refused to leave. Even when Rachel had asked her to head home with her, she had fought her mother. Begging them to let her stay next to him just for one night because she "need(ed) to be here if Danno needs me in the middle of the night." If his heart wasn't already breaking, her pleas just about shattered it.
He wasn't all too keen on letting his daughter stay the night in the ICU but he had come to learn it wouldn't have been the first time anyway. Finally relenting, Rachel had left, leaving him and his daughter. Grace had fallen asleep shortly after, her head resting next to his torso. He had tried waking her up, asking her to move over to the couch which would be a tad less uncomfortable than the plastic chair she was on. But his daughter was not having any of it, stubborn just like him, she had refused to budge from his side. So as she curled closer into his side, he had gently placed his hand on her head, caressing her hair as she slept while he was losing his own battle with fatigue.
That was the sight that had greeted his partner as Steve wheeled himself into the room.
"Danny?" Steve whispered, a little uncertain. "Are you awake?"
A soft groan was his response before his blue orbs peeled open slowly.
"Did I wake you?"
"Mm..s'kay." He said. "Shld..n't you be.. in bed?" He asked, his laboured breathing peppering his speech with pauses.
"Missed my partner. How're you feeling?"
Partner.
"Okay..just..m'tire..d..Wanna sleep.." It wasn't a lie. He was tired and he did want to sleep. But he wouldn't deny that it was also a convenient excuse to get out of having to hold any form of conversation with Steve.
He couldn't bear to look at his partner, his friend when he knew what he did now. Steve had made it crystal clear just a few days back how much he was wanted. Or rather unwanted. What was Steve even doing here now? Missed him? Was he supposed to believe that?
"Alright, sure." His partner said.
"Don't have..to stay.. Got Gra..ce here.."
"Well.. I can't stay long anyway. Dr Cornett's a tyrant. But I'll stay for as long as I can, alright? You sleep, buddy."
He looked at Steve, too tired to insist. He nodded slightly before he closed his eyes. It didn't take long for him to fall asleep, accompanied by two people so darn important in his life. Except one of them would outgrow her love for him one not so distant day and the other already hated him.
…
Steve leaned in his wheelchair, soaking in the view of the two people that had a huge share of his heart. He winced inwardly, knowing that Grace, even being the young teenager that she was, would be waking up with a massive back and neck ache if she stayed bent over the side of her father's bed any longer. He would wake her but he didn't really want to disrupt her sleep either. That was likely the single good sleep that she had had in the last few days. He could only imagine how relieved she must have been to finally hear her father's voice again.
He exhaled slowly, trying not to make much of a sound so as to not wake the two up. Looking at his partner's relaxed features and controlled breathing, he too felt an immense relief. Danny was going to be okay. Everything was going to be fine. The mantra that had kept him going the past few days seemed to be legitimately potent. His prayers had been answered.
His best friend was back. Except...
"Hey, Steve?" His thoughts were interrupted.
Peeling his eyes away from his partner, he turned towards the sliding door which Chin had just walked through. The guy looked every bit like he had just worked a 24-hour case. Completely sleep-deprived and running on and overload of caffeine. Boy, did he not miss that.
"Hey."
"You alright?" Chin asked, settling in the chair on the other side of Danny's bed.
"Yeah." He nodded.
"How's he doing?" He asked, eyes fixed on his colleague lying in the bed. A small smile tugged at his lips at the sight of Danny's hand lightly resting on his daughter's back.
"He's alright. You missed him by a bit. Fell asleep a while ago."
"Tell me about it. The case dragged a little longer." He said, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Kono and Lou will be by tomorrow. They were dying to see him but I told them to go home. It's late and Danny would need his rest too."
"Hmm."
"Everything okay, Steve? Is his condition alright?"
"Yeah, yeah. Doc says his vitals are stable. A couple more days here, if he continues to show improvement, they can consider moving him to the normal ward."
"Yeah? That's great news, brah." Chin sighed in relief, speaking a little too loud, causing Danny to stir slightly. They both looked at him intently but he showed no further signs of waking.
Chin turned to look at him again. His face must have been that readable. "Okay, Steve.. What's going on?" Chin asked again.
He rubbed his tired features with both hands, releasing a soft sigh. He wasn't sure. Was he thinking too much? "I don't know..It's just, I think he.. he's avoiding me?"
"Avoiding?" Chin asked. "What do you mean?"
"It's like, he doesn't want to see me. This morning when I came into his room, he went to sleep after barely a few words. And again when I came in a while ago. Says he's tired."
"And he must be. I mean, he's been through a lot the past few days, we'll have to take it slow."
"I get it. That's what I'm telling myself too.. But maybe, a small part of me knows that.. he's still mad at me. After what happened, how I've treated him in the past week. What I've said to him.. I was a complete jerk to someone who least deserved it."
"Hey, look, don't beat yourself up too much. It was a messy period, alright? The stress of it all, you had a lot to come to terms with. I have to admit, we tried to sweep it all under the rug. You were back and that was all that mattered to us. But you had a long recovery to face, adjustments to make, your life changed instantly. And I'm sorry we didn't realise that sooner. We were all there for you when you were putting on a strong front but when you were struggling, you didn't get the support you needed from us. And maybe that's why you lashed out. On the most convenient person too, right?"
"It's still no excuse.. I know I hurt him."
"I think we all did.." Chin said. "Like I said, you came back from near death and at that point, I guess that was all that mattered. Busy caring for you, maybe at some point, we forgot to show him that we cared about him too. And Kono was right, we were terrible friends to him.. It took us almost losing him too before we realised that. But it's not too late to show him that we care now, right?"
"I hope it isn't. He has to forgive me right?" He looked at Chin, hoping for some reassurance because at this point, he really wasn't sure. "He's my best friend, a brother to me, and I made him think I don't care about him, that I hate him."
"Steve.. Talk to him. When he's awake, talk to him, let him know what you really feel. "
"No.. not now.. I don't want to add further stress on him. He's not strong enough yet. I'm not sure how he'll take it. He's not ready for the conversation. Not yet. And I don't want to force it on him."
"Fair enough. But are you putting it off for him or for yourself? The sooner you speak to him, the better." Chin said. "He'll understand."
...
Danny blinked wearily. It was a whole lot of information to take in. Key takeaways he got from the very long summary of his condition were a) he's not dead and b) he wasn't dying anytime soon. Somewhere in between, he had zoned out as the doctor droned on and on and on about his medical issues. Well, the doctor wasn't helping, did he really think throwing a dozen medical jargons per sentence was going to be helpful?
"Detective?" The doctor looked at him questioningly.
"Umm?" He asked. There must have been a question directed towards him because the doctor and his nurse were both looking at him expectantly. "Wh..at is it?"
"I asked if you have any questions." He said.
"Oh.. uh, right.. yea..h yeah.. when can I..be discharged..from here?"
"You mean the ICU? Well, if.."
"No..the hospital.. When ca..n I be rele..ased? I'd like to... go home."
The lean, asian doctor paused. He scratched the top of his eyebrow, likely wondering if the recent trauma had done something to his head. Even he knew that his question bordered on the ridiculous side. Because the poor guy had just spent the last twenty minutes explaining to him the gravity of his medical complications, how low his blood pressure had dropped, how he had almost not made it. So the last thing that Doctor Han would have likely expected was a question regarding his discharge.
But he couldn't resist asking. It was suffocating to stay in the ICU, cooped to his bed and constantly being subjected to the nurses poking and prodding. Seriously, how much more of his blood were they planning to take? But barring all of that, the most important reason he needed to get out of there was his son. He missed Charlie so much.
The doctor inhaled slowly. "Umm.. you're not well enough to go home just yet. We won't be talking about that for the next week at least."
"Doc.." Danny began to protest.
"Detective Williams, you need to understand.."
"I understand." Danny breathed. "I get wha..t you're saying. But.. you just said, the infec...tion is under control, there's no.. intern..al bleeding. Which mea...ns I'm fine now."
"Yes I did say that. But I also mentioned that your immune system took quite a hit. Well, a big hit. The bout of pneumonia you had has inflicted severe stress on not just your lungs but your body in general. Currently, your body is still in the recovery process. Coupled with your injuries as well as liver and spleen surgeries, we cannot rule out any further complications down the road. We need to monitor that your post-op healing is going as it should be and the best way to do that considering your vulnerable state, is right here in the hospital where we have plenty of medical staff to attend to you in case anything goes wrong. There is absolutely no chance of you being released anytime earlier than next week. And that is the earliest. Pending on your tests and scans, we will decide when you can go home."
"But doc.."
"Detective, you're my responsibility. I am not willing to jeopardise your health. I understand being in the ICU is not exactly the most fun. What I can give you right now is if your condition continues to improve in the next two days, we can move you back to your room with Commander McGarrett. That should be good enough for you, am I right?"
He paused, not quite sure that was the best idea. No, actually, he was pretty sure it was a terrible idea.
"...care about him, that I hate him."
"Steve.. Talk to him. When he's awake, talk to him, let him know what you really feel. "
"No.. not now.. I don't want to add further stress on him. He's not strong enough yet. I'm not sure how he'll take it. He's not ready for the conversation. Not yet. And I don't want to force it on him."
"Fair enough. But are you putting it off for him or for yourself? The sooner you speak to him, the better. He'll understand."
He had woken up to the voices of his colleagues talking the night before, making him an unwitting audience to their private conversation. He was no genius, but he could guess what they meant. Seems like the team had come to an agreement. Hardly surprising. He should have seen it coming from a mile away, he definitely was the dumb one. Now, only a conversation was left. And honestly, it was the last thing on earth that he was ready for.
...
A/N: Hey guys! I hope it hasn't been too long a wait but here's a very long chapter for you guys to make up for the lack of things happening in the previous one. Hope you guys enjoyed it (though I'm a little wary). Don't be mad about the end, okay? I'll make it right..somewhere down the road..I think.. Anyways, thanks for reading and reviewing. See you in the next one and take care all! :)