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Danny hovered as close as he could while the paramedics worked on getting Steve stabilized enough for transport. Their biggest concern seemed to be that Steve may have knocked the back window out with his head. The fact that he was still completely unresponsive was a bad sign.
Danny was vaguely aware that other medics were working on injured police officers, but he blocked them all out. After everything that had happened, Steve could not die handcuffed in the back of a police car.
"He's ready to go," yelled one of the paramedics, a red haired woman named Piper (What did it say about Danny's life that he recognized all of the paramedics on the island?), "You riding with us, Danny?"
"Of course," he answered, already starting to climb into the ambulance.
The HPD Captain who had stopped him from going to help Chin earlier appeared, "McGarrett is still a prisoner. You need to wait until I can assign a guard to go with him."
"A guard!" Danny was livid, "He's barely alive!" He raised his right hand, "I solemnly swear that I will not let him escape. Now let's go."
Before the Captain could protest further, Piper slammed the back door in his face and signaled for her partner to go. Danny wanted to thank her, but he was afraid to take any of her attention away from Steve.
Steve's eyelids fluttered. A little bit of the tightness in Danny's chest relaxed as his partner appeared to be waking up.
"Commander, can you hear me?" Piper asked?
Steve opened his mouth like he was going to respond. Instead, his entire body began to twist in a series of convulsions. The violent movement caused various cuts to bleed heavily.
"Detective, I need you to try and hold him still," Piper instructed tensely, "Put your hands here on his shoulders." She began trying to staunch some of the blood loss.
The convulsions were less violent but still occurring when they arrived at the hospital a few minutes later. A swarm of medical professionals immediately descended on Steve and whisked him away.
Danny had done this part often enough in the past year that he knew the drill. He accepted the clipboard of forms with question or complaint. As he settled into an uncomfortable chair to complete them, he was actually happy to have something to keep his mind off the image of his friend laying limply on the stretch, covered in his own blood.
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Kono was awakened from her unplanned nap by the sound of the front door unlocking. Her eyes darted around frantically, but there was nowhere to hide in the living room. The couch was in full view of the front door.
The person on the other side of the door seemed to be fumbling with something and didn't swing the door open immediately. It gave Kono a second to imagine HPD finding her in a murder suspect's supposedly empty house. She'd be hauled back in for another round of questioning by IA. Being caught here was a stupid, stupid mistake.
Kono, who had been expecting an entire crime scene unit, was surprised when a single woman finally entered the house. She was petite but carried herself with an air of alertness. Her dark hair was pulled back in a messy bun. Her brown eyes were tired and worried.
Kono could not think of a good reason for a strange woman to be at Steve's house right now. She wished that she still had her gun. The other woman had dropped her large duffle bag and was going for the alarm panel when she saw Kono sitting like a statue on the couch.
Kono sprang to her feet and the stranger dropped into a defensive crouch. They eyed each other warily.
Kono realized that the other woman's wrinkled khaki clothing was actually a naval uniform. "Why do you have a key to Steve's house? Who are you?"
"I'm Lt. Catherine Rollins. Steve is my boyfriend. He gave me the key." She and Steve never used words like girlfriend and boyfriend but Cat decided it would give her the most credibility.
Kono's posture relaxed, "Kono Kalakaua," she introduced herself, "I'm part of the Five-0, or I was part of the Five-0."
She was trying to decide how to tell Catherine about the current situation when the Lieutenant surprised her, "Why don't you get us both some water while I take my bag upstairs. Then you can tell me about how Steve ended up in jail."
Thirty minutes later, Kono was just finishing up her story when there was a loud pounding on the front door, "HPD –Open up!"
Catherine calmly rose from the couch and straightened her uniform before opening the door, "How may I help you officers?"
Two men in HPD uniforms eyed her coldly, "This is supposed to be empty. Who are you and how did you get in here?"
"I live here with my boyfriend, Steve McGarrett. I've been assigned to a carrier group but I just arrived back at Pearl," Cat drew on her background as a naval officer to infuse her words with authority.
"What's she doing here?" One of the men gestured to Kono, apparently recognizing her.
"She's a friend of Commander McGarrett's. She was nice enough to meet me and help me settle back in," Catherine covered smoothly.
The taller officer gave them a suspicious look, "If you're so close to McGarrett, shouldn't you be at the hospital?"
Catherine's heart stopped, "Why would we be at the hospital?"
Kono snatched her cell phone out of her pocket and cursed when she realized the battery had died.
"McGarrett was being transferred to Halawa when the patrol car exploded," both women gasped, "Three officers were killed, four more were wounded. McGarrett's apparently in bad shape. He's at Queens."
Kono and Catherine rushed past the two men on the porch and ran to Cat's rental car.
She tossed the keys to Kono, "You drive. You can get us there faster."
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Governor Patrick Page resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands and groan. There were too many people around for to show that kind of weakness.
Still, he hadn't even been in office a full day and three squad cars had exploded behind HPD headquarters. Why was someone trying to kill McGarrett? Even the Five-0's biggest critics couldn't spin this as an escape attempt. It was nothing short of an attempt on the man's life. And why the hell was McGarrett even in a squad car? Page had never been a cop, but it seemed like common sense that McGarrett should have been secured in a cell, not driving around the countryside.
This time, Page knew better than to wonder what Jameson would have done. She would have sent Five-0 to investigate. Page briefly considered calling Crosby but dismissed the idea. Crosby was at Five-0 headquarters meeting with his new taskforce for the first time. Page wanted them to concentrate on the drug case.
Instead, he picked up the phone and dialed Chief Mahaka's number. Mahaka's house was falling apart around him, Page expected in to personally put it in order if he wanted to keep his job.
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Danny was sharing a small private waiting room with two uniformed officers. They were there to keep McGarrett from escaping. It infuriated Danny that everyone seemed more concerned about punishing Steve than making sure he stayed alive.
Duke Lukela had picked these two, Samson and Ariyoshi, personally, knowing that they weren't hostile to the former Five-0 like many other officers were. So far, they had left Danny alone on one side of the room.
Shortly after Danny had finished filling out forms, Samson and Ariyoshi had approached him. At first, he had ignored them. The other injured officers had also been brought in and there were a number of cops waiting for news on friends. When they had identified themselves as the officers there to secure McGarrett, Danny had gotten a bit loud. That was when they had been escorted to the private waiting room.
A doctor had come in shortly after that to inform him that Steve had a severe concussion, possibly complicated by a skull fracture. There were also a number of minor injuries that were still being treating. He had lost a great deal of blood from his many cuts. They were still trying to remove all the glass and get the cuts stitched up. Steve was being taken for a CT scan and they would know more later. Then the doctor disappeared and Danny was left alone with his two shadows again.
Danny tried calling Kono but her phone went straight to voicemail. That was strange but he was too worried about Steve to give it much thought.
Next he called Chin, who answered immediately, "Danny how's Steve? You're at the hospital, aren't you?"
"Ya, I'm here. Steve's biggest injury seems to be a head injury. They're taking him for test now. He lost a lot of blood and he had some kind of seizure in the ambulance on the way here," Danny was impressed that his voice was so much calmer than he felt.
"I was at the crime lab when it happened," Chin told him, "Now I'm at HPD helping to process the scene here." Maybe Danny didn't sound as good as he thought he did because Chin paused and then asked, "Do you need me to come down there?"
"No, you'll do more good there than you will sitting here holding my hand. I tried Kono but got voicemail. I'll keep trying." A new thought occurred to him, "Damn it, I forgot to call Jenna. Do you think she's seen it on the news yet?"
There was a moment of awkward silence before Chin finally answered, "Jenna left. I talked to Kono this morning and she told me. Kono has all of the evidence Jenna was working on."
Danny was stunned, "She just . . ." he paused to collect himself and started again, "There's just nothing to say to that. You finish up there and I'll keep you up to date on Steve's condition." He ended the call.
Several more attempts to reach Kono all ended with voicemail. Danny assumed she was sleeping after the god awful night she'd had. Or maybe she was surfing to release tension. He paced a little to pass the time. He got some coffee from the cafeteria and pretended that he didn't notice that Ariyoishi happened to get coffee at the same time.
Settling back into his chair, Danny checked his watch. Two hours. How long did a CT take? He was done being patient. It was time to go find some answers.
When Danny headed for the door, Samson moved as if to block him.
"What?" Danny snapped, "You aren't here to guard me. Or do you think I'm about to help McGarrett made some daring escape? Maybe he'll make a parachute out of hospital gowns and jump off the roof?"
Samson wisely backed off.
Out in the hallway, Danny spotted a familiar nurse named Emily. She had been one of his nurses during his own most recent hospital stay.
"Excuse me, Emily," Danny gave her his most charming smile, "I was just wondering if there was any information yet on Commander McGarrett's condition?"
"We have four wounded police officers in our ER. When someone has time, they'll be in to give you an update." she gave him an artificial smile and hurried away.
Danny was about to find a doctor and make a more forceful request for information when the elevator doors opened. Kono rushed out, followed closely by a beautiful woman Danny didn't know.
"Did you try to call me? My phone's dead. I'm so sorry that I didn't know what was going on. I didn't know Steve had gotten hurt," Kono's eyes were damp like she was about to cry.
Danny started to tell her that it was okay, but the other woman pushed her way in between them, "Where's Steve. Is he okay?"
Danny frowned at here. There was something familiar about her voice but he had never met her before. Right now he had no more patience for more strangers with demands. He put his hands on her shoulders to physically move her aside.
Kono stopped him with a hand on his own shoulder, "Danny, this is Catherine Rollins. She helped us with the Missouri case, remember?"
"That's why your voice is familiar. I'm sorry. The last few days have been trying to say the least."
Ariyoshi cleared his throat apologetically from behind Danny, "There's a doctor with an update on McGarrett waiting to talk to you."
He was suddenly standing alone in the hallway as Danny led the two women back to the waiting room.
A serious looking doctor in a white lab coat was waiting for them, "Ah, there you are. I'm Doctor Neville."
"Is Steve going to be okay?" Danny asked, beating both women to the question.
"Commander McGarrett has a Grade III concussion. We feared a complicating skull fracture but the scans came back clean. He was awake for a little bit but extremely disoriented, which is normal with this type of injury. I would expect to see some memory loss but right now he's too disoriented to determine how much."
"But he'll be okay?" Kono pressed.
"He was in an explosion. Are there any other injuries?" Catherine questioned.
"What about the seizures?" Danny demanded.
Dr. Neville held up her hands to signal for quiet, "He should be fine. We've removed all the foreign objects, mostly glass, from his cuts and sutured up the lacerations that were deep enough to need it. We had to transfuse some blood to make up for what he lost but, once he did, his vitals all stabilized. We're going to keep him for at least 72 hours to monitor how the head injury is resolving itself."
Danny sighed in relief. He felt better with Steve in the hospital than in jail. They had 3 days to find the evidence they needed to keep Steve from going back into a cell.
"Can we see Steve?" Catherine asked.
"He's sleeping right now. Rest is the best thing for him. We can't give him a strong painkiller because of the concussion so he's going to be very, very sore. For the next 24 hours, I'll allow one visitor at time. Then we'll see how he's doing." Dr. Neville headed for the door, "A nurse will be in to get you as soon has Commander McGarrett is settled in his room."
"Do you mind if I see him first?" Catherine asked quietly.
"Of course not," Kono assured her.
"You two stay here and take turns sitting with Steve," Danny paused and lowered his voice, "I know that these two will be watching him, but I'm worried that whoever planted that bomb will try again. Kono I'd feel better if you stayed close."
Danny and Kono both regarded Catherine for a moment, both trying to figure out how to continue.
Catherine straightened her shoulders and met their eyes, "I know that you don't me but I am a trained naval officer. I'm trained in hand-to-hand combat. You can trust me to keep Steve safe."
Danny nodded, "You two stay here. I'm going to HPD to check in with Chin. We need to stop reacting and get in front of this somehow. And that's what we're going to do."
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Pausing outside the hospital, Danny decided to make a stop before heading down the HDP. He took out his cell phone and pulled up a number from his contacts, "Hey Toast, its Williams. I need to stop by and show you something. Stay there and I'll see you in a few minutes."
Teaser for the next chapter: Steve in a hospital gown, sneaking down a dark hospital hall. An angry Danny yelling at Catherine for keeping things from them.