A/N: Hi. This story follows "Watching over you"

Caring hands

It has been a beautiful day. A sunny Saturday, warm and cozy, but not near as warm as Danny´s heart has been all day long while he shared every hour and moment with Grace and Charlie.

The night before, he had asked Lou to take him home. His own house and own bed was much better than the improvised bedroom downstairs at Steve´s. His house was much better suitable for an ailing body, besides, Grace and Charlie had their own rooms, and they were to spend the entire weekend with their dad. Lou had helped him move back, and had done the majority of the arrangements to put the place running again, including the groceries, while Danny slowly limped around trying to help but finally collapsed on the couch. Lou had spent the night and left after Grace and Charlie arrived in the morning, to give the Detective some time alone with his kids.

And Danny had had a great day, but he had also overdone it. He realized it a little bit too late. At nine pm, he collapsed on his bed with effort after a quick shower. As soon as his head rested on the pillow, he remembered he hasn´t taken his meds. Big white pills, sitting on the bathroom shelf, stayed still and forgotten, quietly waiting in vain because their designated patient was not getting up again to take them. The pounding on his head and the pain on his shoulder and chest were just starting as he drifted off at the low sounds of the TV and Grace´s movement coming from the living-room. It was still early to go to bed for the young woman, so she made herself comfortable on the couch in front of the TV after tucking her brother in and then making sure his tired and sore dad made it to his bed after the shower. He was already asleep, a light frown on his face, but he had managed to get under the covers and the exertion of the busy day with her and Charlie put him out instantly as he reached the softness of his bed. The movie she chose to watch after zapping twice was not so good, but she alternated with the social media on her phone to connect with her friends. After a few hours, as the credits of the film were rolling and the room darkened as the light of the TV attenuated, she moved and reached for the lamp and turned it on. Sitting back down, she stilled because she thought hearing something. Adjusting her ears, she heard faint movement coming from his dad´s bedroom, followed right after by her name being called out.

Danny didn´t want to call her, but he had no other choice. The pain he felt upon waking was breathtaking. Not taking his meds has been a monumental mistake. Now he was a helpless prey of his hammering head and aching chest. His heart was constricted by his pain, and he felt as if he was having a heart attack, he assumed, because he didn´t know what it would feel like. But it couldn't be any more different than this. He managed to turn the bedside lamp on, and his intention was going to the bathroom to take the much needed pills, but he was paralyzed with pain. So, instead, he had no choice but to call for help, and the only one there was his daughter, so against his wishes, he called out her name.

"Grace" The call came out breathless and stained with too much hurt. It didn´t reach far so he tried again.

"Grace!" The reverberations of the higher voice made him cringle as it sent lightning of pain through his brain and shoulder and made him grasp his chest as he couldn´t draw enough air towards his lungs. But this time it worked. Grace´s face appeared on the ajar door, her young features frowning instantly as she saw her father breathing hard and obviously in pain. She approached him and, with asking eyes, she reached his scared blue ones.

"What´s wrong?" Her insecure and scared tone made Danny try harder to appear fine, but it was obvious that he was not.

"Nothing" He swallowed the nausea. "Bring me the meds that are on the bathroom. I forgot to take them earlier…"

She run to comply, and was back at his side in a second. At the fact that her father had his eyes tightly closed in distress, she pressed the retrieved pills into his hand, and Danny responded, automatically lifting them to his mouth. Grace next put the glass of water into his hand and, not trusting him with its whole weight, assisted her dad in bringing it to his lips and swallow two sips to help wash down the pills. While he did so she took into his appearance. He didn´t look good, sick at the least. Not being so confident by herself, Grace felt she needed backup.

"I´ll call mom". The first person that came into her mind was her mother, logically, but thinking further of it, it was not the most logical option for her dad.

Through his blinding, white, pounding and hot pain Danny heard her daughter´s statement and stopped her midway´s through the room as she made her way to fetch her phone.

"No, Grace, don´t call her" His words sounded more like a plea, pitifully leaving his lips, and that was everything he got to try to stop her. Grace looked at him and considered the situation. She was positive she needed to call someone. Her dad looked like he needed more help than just the meds, at least just to be sure. His distressed voice as he pleaded her not to call Rachel was enough for her to drop the idea. Sometimes she didn´t understood her parents. She was sure that they loved each other, why wasn´t that enough? Why was adult love so complicated? She put those questions aside as she thought who to call. The easiest answer was out of reach. `Where are you Uncle Steve?´, she thought to herself as she travelled the contacts in her phone looking for other logical option. She found Will´s father and pressed the call button. He had made her promise, in the morning after he left her and Charlie alone with Danny, to call him if anything was needed. So she did.

After taking the pills, Danny tried to remain as still as possible. Awkwardly half propped up on the backboard of the bed, he had closed his eyes and after Grace left to obviously call someone over, he now hoped that she heard him and didn´t call her mother while he swallowed saliva to try to keep the pain-induced vomit at bay. He didn´t even neither try nor intend to lie back down completely or seek a better and more comfortable position, because he knew the pain will backfire to him. So he closed his eyes and the only thing he could do was acknowledge every inch of his painful body and curse the moment when he forgot to take his meds. He didn´t have any other choice to improve his current pitiful situation than to wait for whoever Grace has chosen to call to help. He couldn´t and he wouldn't ask her to drag his sorry ass to the bathroom and watch him vomit. Danny barely opened his eyes as she came back and sat at the border of the bed and took his cold hand in her warmer ones. Her worried and uncertain eyes reached his filled-with-pain ones.

"Are you feeling better?" She asked in a low voice, not intending to cause him more discomfort.

"Yeah" His voice came out without sound and short. He shut his mouth quickly and swallowed the nausea. He would not vomit in front of Gracie. She noticed it, and got up. "I´ll get a bucket or something", and so she disappeared through the door. Danny´s nausea grew and he started to sweat profusely. He managed to lift a trembling hand towards his clammy forehead and applied some cold there. He really shouldn´t puke because the meds will be washed away with it, but he couldn't hold on any longer. As soon as Grace returned with a bucket, he motioned her to hurry and give it to him. As it appeared below his face he automatically released the contents of his stomach in it, seeing how the almost intact white pills were gone among the yellowish bile. Retching repeatedly dry heaves after there was nothing left inside him, he was leer totally spent and fell back to his previous awkward position, not having even the will to wipe his mouth and frowning as a response to the killing headache that had increased because of the violent movement of the dry heaving.

His frown grew even deeper when he felt Grace running a wet handkerchief trough his mouth. The headache prevented him from turning his face away. Everything he didn´t wanted happened. Grace had to see him puke and be beyond miserable. He was glad he had his eyes closed and didn´t have to look at her, so he kept them closed, and somehow drifted away after she ran the cool cloth trough all his face, washing away the sweat and leaving a refreshed sensation on his skin.

His face was ashen and felt hot again when he reopened his eyes and someone else but his daughter was leaning over him, a bigger figure, massive and huge, intimidating from his lower and vulnerable point of view. The vomiting of the pills made the pain resurface and hit him with force again, and he swallowed another wave of nausea as Lou reached under his shirt to place a thermometer in his armpit and he ineffectively tried to block him away. Danny was surprised when he heard another voice asking his daughter if she knew where the meds were. Adam was there too. They had ganged up against him. In his state of pain and discomfort he was in, that was his first thought, but in the background of his mind he knew they were just helping him. Nevertheless, he kept trying to "battle" Lou´s hands away when the ex-SWAT Captain kept attending him by removing the thermometer an feeling once again his forehead. He felt overpowered when Adam´s hands came and joined Lou´s and started to help him to sit straighter on the bed and abandon his awkward position to be able to take a new pair of pills that obviously Adam had found. Dizziness hit him when he opened his eyes and scanned the room to make sure Grace wasn´t witnessing more of this humiliating procedures. She wasn´t, and that fact was a drop of water on a very hot dessert, a very short lived relief that lasted few seconds until the movement that he was forced to do made his nausea come back. The movement stilled and soon the bucket, now empty and clean, was positioned again under his chin. The mere plastic scent was enough for him to gag, and nothing but translucent gastric juice and bile left his mouth, along with chocked sounds. The spasms gave lighting of shooting pain through his healing shoulder and sore ribs, and now he was truly grateful for his friends support while they held his arms and his head while he dry heaved miserable again and a strong hand massaged his nape. He felt awful. His pain was so fierce that he didn´t care about anything else than to lost himself in a deep sleep. As the gags subsided, a glass of water was offered and he rinsed his mouth with the clean liquid and spit it on the bucket, which was taken away and the glass was there again, along with a hand offering him the meds. With a blurry sight and shaky hand he took them and managed to put them in his mouth. His same shaking hand accompanied the glass that was lifted to his mouth and, taking a big sip, washed them down. That task accomplished, and after making sure the little water he swallowed stayed inside him this time, he heavily leaned back aimlessly and was helped to achieve a comfortable position lying on his side, and then the covers were accommodated below his chin and covering his shoulder and back, tucking him in warmly.

"Thanks" Before drifting to his much needed and desired sleep, Danny didn´t forget to thank his friends for their support and help. Lou shaked the thermometer. Luckily, It didn´t reveal any sign of fever, so he assumed it was safe to just let Danny sleep. The meds will do their thing and their friend will be on the mend again. Apparently, the vomiting was due to the strong headache and all the overexertion he had done during the day, things that will be solved with the meds and a good rest.

"Are you feeling better?" Los asked him as he returned from the bathroom where he went to replace the thermometer again and to make account of the pain medication that Danny kept on the bathroom shelf.

Half face buried on the pillow, Danny´s frown told him that the pain was still there.

"Yeah" The detective exhaled the response, with a hoarse voice due to the vomiting he just had had to endure.

"Ok" Not having anything else to do to alleviate his friend, Lou patted his leg, walked towards the door, turned off the lights and left the room to join Adam and Grace at the living-room.

Encouraged by the welcoming darkness, Danny sighed and eventually fell asleep, hoping that when he woke up again he would feel renewed and pain-free. So deep he fell in his sleep that he didn´t notice his phone buzzing on the nightstand table, nor reached it to see Steve´s name on the caller´s ID.