"Where is he? Is he okay?"

Danny could hear Mary's frantic voice from out in the hallway. He stood up from the chair by Steve's bedside and made his way to the doorway. The door narrowly missed his face as it opened, revealing the distressed face of Steve's sister with a nurse on her heels.

"Danny," Mary cried out.

For a long moment, he remained stiff. He was too shocked by everything going on to react and desperately trying not to freak out. Just then he spread his arms into an inviting gesture without a single word, offering comfort as much as he craved it himself.

Mary sank into his embrace. "What happened?" She asked when they parted and her sight trailed to Steve.

The nurse's stern look suggested she wasn't happy with her patient's rest being rudely interrupted, so Danny gently pushed Mary back to the corridor and closed the door behind them. He mouthed a quick apology to the nurse and watched her walk away, then turned his attention back to Mary, who looked into his face. Her eyes were red and swollen, and her cheeks stained with tears.

"There was a car crash on his way back after dropping you off," he said.

"I told him not to drive like a mad man!" she said with a hint of fury in her voice. "A car accident was just a question of time with his reckless driving."

While Danny couldn't agree more about Steve's way of driving, he was hundred percent sure this had nothing to do with it.

"It wasn't an accident."

"What?"

"Just what I said." Danny watched her brows squint in confusion. "Steve managed to call me after the crash. He was pretty out of it, and I wasn't able to get much out of him. But from what I heard, it sounded as if he knew someone was after him."

"Oh, God."

"And I heard a gunshot. I've been in this line of work long enough to know that if weapons and injuries meet, it rarely links with accidents."

"He's been shot?" Mary's raised voice attracted the attention of two nurses passing by, but she didn't seem to care.

"No," Danny said. "But I found the bullet right next to the car."

"It doesn't make any sense. So what happened?"

He shrugged. "I don't know yet. But someone hammered him from the side and I didn't see any tire tracks from braking either. Looks to me like getting Steve off road was the intention. Why they didn't finish the job, I don't know."

"What about the other driver then?"

"Gone. But we'll find him."

Mary let out a shaky exhale and sadness returned to her eyes. "How is he doing? What did the doctor say?"

He bit his lip, thinking about an appropriate answer.

"Just tell me," she pleaded. "I can handle it."

So he did. Summing up all he'd been told by the doctor, he tried to be as careful with his words as possible, but Mary's eyes watered anyway. No wonder, really. How could she not be scared if Steve was her and Joan's only family? The only one that cared, anyway.

"Where's Joan, by the way?" he asked.

"With Kono. She called me and I had to come here and didn't want to drag a baby with me."

Danny nodded in understanding.

Mary gestured to the closed doorway of Steve's room. "Do you mind…? I'd like to see my brother."

"I'll go get coffee," he said. "You want something?"

"Please. I could use some. Black."

He filed Mary's coffee preference away and watched in silence as she made her way to Steve's bedside and placed a gentle kiss on his forehead before taking Danny's spot in the uncomfortable plastic chair. He closed the door after that, providing them some privacy, and walked away with coffee in mind. Something told him it'd be a long day.

And he'd been right.

After silently sipping their coffee in silence, Danny was able to convince Mary it'd be in everyone's best interest if she and Joan went back to her brother's house. They hugged goodbye and after promising to call for any change in Steve's condition–one way or another–it was just the two of them again.

Time dragged, and waiting for good news and Steve coming around could be only described as downright torturous. The slightest twitch of his friend was enough to rouse Danny's tired mind to full alertness. The nurses and the doctor kept coming in and out, monitoring their patient closely and making sure he was as comfortable as possible. The shift changed as the day neared to the end, and yet another group of professionals had no news for Danny.

It was in Steve's hands now, they said, and it was a damn waiting game.

Danny hated it.

He hated the sound of the ventilator keeping Steve alive by breathing for him. Hated the painful-looking tube between his ribs draining the fluid from his damaged lungs. Hated the smell of disinfectant in the room. But most of all, he hated the complete helplessness and fear that shook him to the core.

The odds were against Steve, and Danny had to face the very real possibility of losing him, no matter how much he tried to deny it. No matter how many times he tried to convince himself that if anyone could pull through, it was his partner. Because notwithstanding Steve's obvious belief, his best friend wasn't invincible.

Living in a world without Steve was hard to even imagine. If someone had told him on their first day together that they'd be like brothers one day, he would have asked what meds they were on. But this goof had wormed a way into his heart despite a not-so-good introduction, and over time, Steve made it to the top three list of the most important people in his life.

He couldn't lose him.

Taking a deep breath, he pulled the chair up to the bed and tucked Steve's right hand carefully in both of his. "Steve?"

His whisper echoed in the quiet room. Could Steve hear and understand, or was he too far away? He cleared his throat, his thumb brushing over his friend's limp hand. "I hope you can hear me," he said, pain etched in his quiet voice. "And just in case you weren't listening all those times before, I'll say this again. You've got to fight, alright? We need you."

Steve lay, still as an open grave, and Danny's throat tightened. "I need you."

Danny sagged in the chair and kept talking. Kept repeating how important it was for him, for Steve to be okay. He didn't know how much time had passed, but not for a second did he lose hope.

Finally, after hours and hours of endless waiting, Steve moved his hand slightly. When Danny lifted his head to see what was going on, Steve's eyelids were slightly apart. His eyes were barely visible slits, his lashes nearly touching his cheeks, and it seemed a struggle for him to stay that way.

Danny positioned himself into Steve's line of sight.

"Hey, buddy."

But Steve didn't seem to register him at all. He lost his fight to stay awake almost immediately and succumbed back to the blissful nothingness.

"It's alright, take your time," he said, a little disappointed. As long as you make it in the end.

So Danny kept waiting, kept watching the nurses adjusting the equipment around and checking on Steve on a regular basis. Even though he thought it was impossible to sleep, he caught himself dozing off in the chair. His head slipped from the palm of his hand that he'd been using instead of a pillow, and the sudden movement brought him back to a fully awakened state.

Just in time to see Steve's eyes open.

Steve swam in a thick grayness, somewhere between light and dark. His body felt as though he should be in pain, but the sensation hovered just out of reach. The cold was real, and shivers racked him.

"Steve?" A lyrical voice soothed over his nerves, a familiar touch stroking his forearm.

A fuzzy figure floating over him slowly came into focus, baby blue eyes staring at him with a strange mixture of fear and relief reflected in them. He'd recognize those eyes anywhere in the world.

Danny.

His friend's lips kept moving, forming into words that didn't make any sense at all. But there was something in Danny's voice that made him want to snap his eyes wide open and ask what was wrong. It was easier said than done, though. The strange heaviness on his chest felt as if it squeezed all the air out of his lungs until he couldn't breathe.

He tried harder, willing himself to overcome it, to breathe in. But with a sudden feeling of panic, he realized that he couldn't.

Something was wrong.

What exactly that was, he wasn't sure. But he could feel an obnoxious feeling of something blocking his airways, making him want to cough and gag as he desperately fought for control. Bile crept up the back of his throat and his fingers curled into fists involuntarily, cold sweat forming on his palms. Something wet ran down his cheek, and if he didn't know better, he'd swear it was a tear.

The expression in Danny's face changed somewhat, and the urgency in his voice escalated with each passing second.

Steve lifted his arm, wanting to do something, but it was attached to something and quickly forced back down by someone stronger. He shook his head in protest, terrified of his weakness. What was going on? Where was he? And why was it so hard to breathe?

The reality slipped away as remembrance flooded his mind–a car speeding up, the phone ringing somewhere in the distance, two pairs of feet making their way toward him, a weapon trained his way.

He struggled to sit up, and the lurking pain tore through his chest.

Danny's hands pushed at his shoulders. "Steve, stop. St–"

He tried to thrust him away, his muscles heavy and uncoordinated, agony shooting through him with each movement. It was a futile attempt.

"Hey, look at me!" Danny took his face in his hands, his blue gaze holding his. Strange, how his voice sounded so distant. "That's it. Just focus on my voice."

Steve tried, but the panic still raged inside him as he tried to fight off the urge to puke.

"Do you trust me?"

Steve trusted him with his life. Didn't Danny know that?

The blonde's voice softened. "Good. Listen to me. You're in a hospital now," he said. "You've been hurt in a car accident and you've got a tube down your throat."

Not an accident, Steve wanted to say, but couldn't. Only the blue depths of Danny's eyes prevented the panic to rise further after that realization.

"You can't talk right now, buddy," Danny said as if reading his mind. "I need you to calm down."

Steve could feel his frantic heartbeat slow down a little under Danny's firm touch. But the awful feeling in the back of his throat was impossible to ignore.

"I know you don't like this. But it's there to help you breathe. It's gonna be fine, but you have to relax. Can you do that for me?"

Steve studied him for a moment, then managed a slight nod, trying to clear the dizzy fuzziness. The brief struggle had exhausted him. The gray depths pulled at him, and he fought the sucking heaviness. He had to stay awake. Had to–

"You're doing good, Commander. Keep breathing." A nurse materialized at his bedside and Steve noticed her for the first time. How long has she been here?

His eyelids fluttered. It became increasingly more and more difficult to cling to consciousness and he could feel his strength begin to fade.

"That's it," she said. "Stay with me."

Her voice grew more distant, and the room got fuzzy once again, swallowing the nurse and Danny into a thick fog. The soothing words from his friend didn't make sense once again. All he wanted was to dive into sweet nothingness of dreamless sleep, but his company seemed determined not to let him do that.

So he tried harder.

Despite his obvious effort, Steve was out again before the doctor made it to the room. The nurse assured Danny it was nothing to be concerned about, yet, it wasn't easy to sit back and wait for his friend to come around again. But he didn't have to wait long. Just over an hour later, a group of hospital staff swarmed around Steve, trying to make him follow simple commands to perform testing with the ventilator to determine if he was strong enough for extubation.

Anxiously waiting for them to be done, Danny couldn't wait to finally talk to Steve. To ask him what the hell had happened and whether he knew who had done this to him. But once again, he wasn't lucky. The effort of moving around seemed to exhaust his partner quickly, and he fell asleep almost immediately after the nurse removed the tube out of his throat and replaced it with a less invasive nasal cannula.

Night fell on Oahu by that time, and Danny thought about calling his colleagues and Mary for an update when his phone buzzed and Chin's name appeared on the screen. He glanced at his sleeping partner, and decided to answer the call outside.

"Chin," he said, shutting the door quietly and making his way down the corridor.

"Hey, how is Steve?"

"Still hanging in there," he said. "They just got him off the vent a while ago."

"That's good."

"Yeah." Danny pinched the base of his nose, trying to mask the worry in his voice. He knew there was still no guarantee Steve would be okay, and it frightened him. "Have you been able to identify the driver yet?"

"Maybe. The car is registered to John Kingsley. A couple of parking tickets in the past, but otherwise no criminal record. When Kono and I went to talk to him, he wasn't at home and it seemed he'd left in a hurry. CSU is searching the house right now."

"Has he got any connections to Steve?"

"Not that we know of. Based on his financials, I'd say that if he's our guy, he's been hired by someone else. He received a fairly large amount from a shell corporation two days ago."

"What else?"

"Not much," Chin admitted. "We found the car abandoned a couple of blocks south but there are no traffic cameras to check in that area. The prints were all over the vehicle and Kono is running them through the system but no match so far."

"What about the ballistics?"

"Still waiting to hear from Fong."

Danny let out a frustrated sigh. He turned around and looked across the corridor. That's when he saw a man in a white doctor's coat walk into Steve's room. For a reason he couldn't explain, his skin prickled.

"Danny?"

Something about that doctor seemed off. And Danny couldn't count how many times simply trusting his instincts had saved his life.

"Danny, you still there?" Chin's voice carried over the phone.

"Yeah."

"Everything all right?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't k–?"

"I gotta go. I'll call you later," he said, not waiting for a reply before ending the call and rushing back to Steve's room.

*to be continued*

This is definitely not my favourite chapter and for some reason it was a challenge to write. Thanks to SteveFan81 for helping me out with this! :)

I'd really appreciate if you shared your thoughts.