CHAPTER 31

Tuesday afternoon, McGarrett residence:

Kono watched as Danny and Chin approached Steve's house. From her position at the front, it looked like nothing had happened, that it just was an ordinary day on Piikoi street. Kono could only imagine what it looked like inside. If Grace was right about the explosion, then things would definitely be messy. Steve's neighbours would be pissed. If they thought the General Pal incident was bad…

Grace snuggled in closer to Kono, not wanting to let go. Kono could only surmise how scared the young girl was. Kono was beyond relieved that Grace appeared to be unharmed. Kono wiped away the tears that drew tracks down the girl's cheeks. She didn't know what to say to calm Grace. Kono knew, deep down, that Grace wouldn't be okay until she knew her Uncle Steve was okay and Fuentes was locked away for good.

"Auntie Kono?" Grace sniffled.

"Hey Grace…" Kono said, smoothing down her hair.

"What…what if Uncle Steve's dead?" Grace asked, more tears falling from her eyes.

Kono didn't know how to answer that. She wanted the same answer.

"Oh, Grace. You know Uncle Steve. Nothing can stop him, not even a bullet," Kono said, not sure if she was saying the right thing to calm the girl.

Grace smiled. "Yeah, he's SuperSEAL."

"Exactly," Kono said.

But even SuperSEALs had their limits.

Tuesday afternoon, McGarrett residence:

"Steve!" Chin heard Danny's yell from upstairs.

Chin quickly finished clearing the lower level of the house before climbing the stairs in the direction of Danny's yell. The last thing they needed was Fuentes' men popping up unexpectedly. Chin didn't like how quiet it was. There were too few men here, particularly since Fuentes was holding Grace here. Why would he leave the place so unguarded? And why would he come here, to Steve's house, of all places? Was there something they had missed?

Chin approached the second landing, noting the man lying on his back in the hallway. He was dead, for sure. No one could survive that much blood loss. Quickly stepping over the man, Chin saw that Steve's door was wide open, having been kicked in from the outside by the looks of it. Chin made his way to the room and stopped in the doorway. Danny was standing, frozen, in the middle of the room. Chin spotted the two men on the floor and immediately rushed over to them. He grabbed Fuentes' arms and tried to pull the man off Steve.

"A little help here Danny," Chin yelled, trying to snap his friend out of his trance.

Danny appeared to shake himself and come back to the moment. He moved to help Chin push Fuentes off Steve. They didn't need to check for a pulse to know the man was dead. The unnatural position of the man's head told them what they needed to know. Regardless of what had happened, they now had one less bad guy to hunt. Having finally got Fuentes' body off of Steve, they were able to get a good look at their boss.

Steve was pale and not moving. His right shoulder was soaked through with blood. Steve must have popped his stitches during the fight. Chin winced when he saw that Steve's shoulder was again out of place, sitting at an awkward angle. Chin quickly tapped his earpiece, informing Kono they needed an ambulance, quickly.

"Is that Steve's blood?" Danny asked, pointing to the blood pooled underneath Steve.

"I don't know," Chin replied. "I hope it's not."

Danny knelt next to his partner and felt for a pulse. He let out a breath of relief when he found one, slow, but palpable. "He's alive."

Chin nodded, appreciating that information. Chin started removing Steve's vest, undoing the clasps at the shoulders before removing it. He inhaled sharply when he saw the ragged wound in Steve's side. It looked like the bullet had entered under the vest. The wound was still seeping and Chin quickly applied pressure, using his knee for extra direct pressure. That brought a groan out from Steve. He stirred and slowly opened his eyes.

"Steve? Are you with me, buddy," Danny asked.

Steve blinked slowly and looked at Danny, confusion evident on his face. Danny wasn't even sure if he was processing what he was saying. Chin pushed down harder on the wound, causing Steve to gasp in pain.

"Sorry Steve, but we need to stop the bleeding," Chin said sympathetically.

"Only you could get yourself shot the day after getting out of the hospital for getting shot," Danny ranted.

"Danny?" Steve whispered, having got it together enough to make sense of what was going on around him.

"Yeah, babe?" Danny said, looking at Steve.

"Grace…is she…" Steve managed before he began coughing.

"Hey, easy there…Grace is fine, thanks to you. She's outside with Kono. She wanted me to give you a hug and a kiss, but I think that will have to wait until you are better," Danny replied.

"F-Fuentes?" Steve rasped.

Danny's eyes flicked over to the body lying beside Steve. "He's gone. You won't have to worry about him ever again."

Steve nodded minutely, his eyes fluttering closed.

"Hey, no sleeping on the job, pal. You still have paperwork to do," Danny joked, trying to keep Steve awake until the paramedics got there.

"T…t-tired Dann…" Steve whispered, causing another coughing fit.

This time the coughing did not stop. Steve's coughing brought up blood that trickled out of his mouth. Steve's lips began turning blue and Steve's eyes rolled into the back of his head.

"Steve! Steve!" Danny yelled, tapping his cheeks.

"Come on, Brah!" Chin yelled.

Chin released the pressure he had on the wound and quickly began chest compressions. The compressions caused more blood to pour from the wound. Danny reached over and applied his own pressure while Chin tried to keep Steve's heart pumping. As Chin began his second round of CPR, he heard the glorious sound of sirens in the near distance. It meant help was coming.

Five minutes later, paramedics entered the house with HPD. Two male medics came into the bedroom and immediately began to assess the situation.

"That one's dead," Danny said, pointing to Fuentes.

The paramedics nodded and began working on Steve. Just by the speed of their movements, Chin and Danny could tell that Steve was in critical condition. They began bagging Steve and took over the compressions from Chin. With their help, the paramedics transferred Steve to the gurney with stopping the chest compressions. Once outside, they jogged to the waiting ambulance, Chin and Danny following closely behind.

The medic not conducting the compressions turned to face the men. "We're taking him to Tripler. Sorry, you can't come with us. We need to move, now!"

Danny and Chin stood back, getting one last glimpse of their boss. It didn't look good. One man was straddling Steve, pumping on his chest. That was the last time they saw him and it didn't do anything to inspire confidence in the team. The ambulance took off, lights and sirens blaring.

"He'll be fine, Danno. He always is. That's why we call him SuperSEAL," Grace said, having come up behind her father and entwining her hand in his.

Danny looked down at his daughter and wished he had her innocence. She was too young to understand the violence and atrocities he saw on a daily basis. He hoped his daughter was right and that he didn't just witness his partner's last few moments on this earth.

Tuesday night, TAMC:

For the second time in a week, the team was sitting in the hospital waiting room, impatiently waiting for news on their boss. They had arrived an hour after the ambulance, having dropped Grace off at the Palace with Rachel and Matt. As much as Danny had wanted to stay, he needed to know how his partner was and if he was still alive. Otherwise he wouldn't be able to look his daughter in the eyes. Arriving at the hospital, they had asked to see Steve, only to be told he was in surgery and the doctor would be out to give them an update soon. That was two hours ago.

It was after sitting on the waiting room for half an hour that the team realised everyone else was staring at them. First, they ignored it. It wasn't like it was unusual to have law enforcement officers in the hospital. When the staring continued, Kono looked at Chin and Danny, finally realising the reason for all the extra attention.

"Uh…Danny, Chin? You guys might want to go get cleaned up," she said, motioning to the blood on their hands and clothes.

Looking down at themselves, Danny and Chin realised how gruesome they must have looked. Not exactly the sight you want to see when you are waiting for news of a loved one. The two men walked off in search of a nearby bathroom after Kono promised she would find them as soon as anyone had any news for them.

They spent half an hour scrubbing Steve's blood from their hands. After four washes, their hands were still tinted red and blood had caked underneath their fingernails. Pink rivulets of water still ran down the drain of the sinks in front of them. It took another three washes to get it all out. Kono had brought them their go bags from the car and they had changed into clean, blood-free clothes. Neither man said anything as they tackled the task with robotic tendencies. They returned to the waiting room, joining Kono in the corner and away from the other patrons.

As the hours progressed, the team found themselves in various states of anxious boredom. Chin was leaning against the off-white wall on the other end of the waiting room, staring out the window at the night sky. Kono was sitting perched on the edge of the hard plastic chair, chewing her nails as she looked up at the clock on the wall every few minutes. Danny was down the hall, on a progressively louder phone call with Rachel.

The call had started nice enough, with Danny talking to Grace about all sorts of nonsense. Then Rachel had taken the phone back. She had started by expressing her concerns for Steve and wanting to thank him for rescuing Grace when he was better. Then the discussion turned into an argument when Rachel suggested taking Grace to the mainland for a while. That had resulted in Danny yelling at her over the phone, explaining all the reasons why taking her away were a bad idea. The yelling had caused the other patrons and hospital staff to doggedly avoid that particular hallway.

Just as Danny's voice reached a higher octave, causing the cousins to flinch, a man entered the waiting room. The man was decked out in camouflage, including face paint and assorted foliage scattered throughout his hair. He looked as though he had just crawled out from a jungle, which was probably an accurate assumption. Chin and Kono stood to greet the older man, Danny still oblivious to the man's arrival.

"I'm assuming you must be Chin and Kono?" the man asked.

"That's correct," Chin said, holding his hand out for the man to shake. "You must be Rod?"

The man shook Chin's hand before shaking Kono's. "Yep, that's me. Call me Rodger. Rod makes me sound like a young man, which I am clearly not anymore."

"Okay, Rodger. Thanks for helping us with the, uh, situation," Chin said diplomatically.

Rodger Tillman nodded. "Of course. I owed Steve a few favours anyway. How is he?"

"We haven't heard anything yet. They've taken him to surgery, but no one has come to update us yet. He didn't look good when we found him," Chin answered.

Tillman sighed and ran a hand down his tired face. He looked past the cousins into the hallway where Danny was again yelling into his phone. Danny's ears and neck were red with built-up rage. Tillman quirked an eyebrow, silently asking the cousins for an explanation.

"Rachel, his ex-wife, is on the warpath. She wants to take Grace away for a while. Obviously, Danny doesn't agree," Kono explained with a small smile.

"Grace is the girl that was kidnapped?" Tillman asked.

"Yeah. That's Danny daughter and Steve's honorary niece," Kono explained.

"Ahh…that explains it," Tillman muttered, causing the cousins to exchange glances of confusion.

"Can we talk about this later, Rachel? Please? Just…don't make a decision until Steve is better…That's all I'm asking," Dany said dejectedly as he hung up and walked over to the group. "Hey Rod…You look like hell," was Danny's greeting.

"Why, thank you Danny. It did get a bit hairy for a while there," Tillman answered.

"Care to fill us in on your little adventure?" Chin asked.

"If you could call it that," Tillman replied. "Steve and I split up at the pre-arranged location. As predicted, Fuentes' men followed me back to the warehouse. Steve was right, all it took was a baseball cap and some sunglasses to fool them. When I got to the warehouse, the place was crawling with Fuentes' men. We took care of them. Oh, you may want to send a few coroners vans up there. We left a bit of a mess," Tillman continued, smirking.

"Do we want to know who 'we' is?" Kono asked, suspicious.

Tillman paused before answering. "Suffice it to say Steve owes the entirety of SEAL Team five steak dinners and a carton of longboards."

The group chuckled. Steve hated paying for things.

"Hey, what happened with Fuentes? He wasn't with the rest of his men," Tillman enquired.

"Only Steve can answer that. Fuentes is dead, we know that much. We just don't know what actually happened…By the way, why didn't Steve tell us he changed the plan? We thought he was heading to the old house in the forest. How did he end up back at his own house?" Danny asked.

"That's what I asked him," Tillman said. "He said it was too easy, going back there. He said it didn't make sense for Grace to be so far away from the drop site. He said Fuentes left him a message, so he went back to his house, where the whole thing started."

"But he didn't tell us. What would have happened if Grace couldn't call us? Then we would have no idea where he was and he would have bled to death!" Danny said angrily.

Tillman smiled.

"What are you smiling at?" Danny said angrily, rounding on Tillman.

"Steve said you'd react this way. His exact words were 'Danny's probably going to be really mad, so don't take it personally. He uses words when he's angry'," Tillman replied. "He knows you well."

"Why didn't you go with the idiot?" Danny said, still angry.

"Believe me, I wanted to. But he wanted a distraction, a way to draw Fuentes' men away. I didn't like it, but I have learnt to trust that boy's instincts. Gotten us out of many sticky situations. He planned to get Grace out without Fuentes finding out. Apparently, that part didn't go quite according to plan," Tillman explained.

"No, he went and got himself shot. Again!" Danny exclaimed, his hands in the air.

"He did what he had to do, Danny…" Tillman said quietly.

Danny appeared to deflate at that. "Yeah, he did…Remind me to thank the idiot when he gets better…Oh, and he is not leaving the hospital without a signed piece of paper this time!"

"You can take that up with him, Brah," Chin said with a smile.

The group sat in the corner of the waiting room, settling in to wait for news about their injured friend. An hour later, Doctor Palamo came out and motioned for them to follow him into a private room. The same room he brought them to the first time Steve was in the hospital. It looked exactly the same as it did two days ago. The doctor waited until the team had sat down before telling them about Steve.

"Detective, when I asked you to bring him back here…this is not exactly what I meant," the doctor began sternly.

"I did warn you about him. He's stubborn and has a mind of his own. Look…please just tell us how he is," Danny pleaded.

Surveying the group, Doctor Palamo took a deep breath before he began the explanation of his patient's prognosis.

"We lost the Commander on the table…"