Oh wow! I was not expecting that kind of response from the first chapter of the story. Thank you so much for all of the reviews and alerts and favorites! The story continues. I think there is only one more part. I will warn you that my niece is coming tomorrow and while I will keep writing, I will be speanding a lot of time with my hyper nine-year-old who loves her Auntie.
I'm really excited about this part. I get into Steve's head a little more and go places I originally hadn't planned in the beginning. Please let me know what you think!
Superhero - Chapter 2
With a storm of thunderous rage, Steven cried out, ramming his fists into the blood-splattered elevator doors as monstrous grief greeted him again with a treacherous smile.
Steve thought of Grace and how she'd have to grow up with only evaporating memories of her father like he had of his mother.
He didn't want to be there, and had a beautiful image of getting on the elevator, taking Danny's car and driving to his favorite stretch of beach. Except Steve was a soldier, and he wouldn't leave Danny until the coroner arrived. It all felt surreal as he stepped over Monroe's corpse and the swelling puddle of blood and traipsed to the window where Danny had fallen, needing to see it. Closing his eyes, he braced himself on the windowsill unable to look down, because his last memory of Danny would be, not of his slicked back New Jersey hair or his ridiculous rants about leis and pineapple, but of his mangled, broken, bullet-riddled body.
Steve had too many memories of his brothers-in-arms dying grotesquely.
It took all the strength he had to open his eyes and face reality. He found himself staring at the gray grid-work of a scaffolding. Steve touched the sun-warmed metal as if it was a mirage. His heart hammered in a painful cadence as he realized what it meant for Danny. With impossibly renewed hope, he glanced down and spotted Danny's smaller form about ten feet down in a limp sprawl, unconscious. Dumbfounded, Steve flung himself out of the window and landed in a bone-jarring crouch that rattled the entire scaffolding. Steve didn't care about anything but his partner.
There was blood. It pooled lazily under Danny's head, back and torso. It took Steve precious minutes to realize that it wasn't enough, that it wasn't flowing from the three bullet holes in Danny's shirt.
He immediately thought of sucking chest wounds and how some thoracic gunshots bled inside the chest cavity, because there just wasn't enough blood. With shaking hands, Steve pressed his fingers to Danny's stubbled throat. He didn't find a pulse. Idly, he noticed that Danny was still clutching his gun.
Steve shook out his trembling, cold hands and tried again, pressing harder into the base of Danny throat. There. He found an erratic, weak pulse. For now, it was more than enough.
With mounting hope, he loosened Danny's tie, flipped it over his shoulder and ripped open his shirt, preparing to staunch the bleeding of gaping bullet holes or fissuring blood.
Instead he found three mushroomed bullets melted into the black ballistic vest that had been concealed under his shirt. It inexplicably was emblazoned with glittering swirl stickers and little hearts.
Steve's heart and mind slammed to a stop of white static and dizzying relief. He touched the vest with reverence and befuddling disbelief.
Danny's entire body bucked as he slammed into consciousness with a gurgling, rattling breath. Steve felt like laughing as Danny surfaced. He snatched the gun from Danny's grasp and held him by the shoulders to keep him as still as possible while he writhed with the pain, choking on both the need to breathe and the sheer agony of doing so. Vests could impede bullets and prevent lethal wounds, but the sheer force could still cause serious injury. Instinct overrode terror as Steven gently, but deftly, unstrapped the vest from the shoulders and sides and shimmied it off, easing the pressure on his chest. It also allowed Steve to see Danny's chest, muscles rigid and tight, diaphragm spasming, purple hematomas already forming. He could see the impact from the bullets at Danny's heart, his left pectoral and just below his ribcage on the right side. Without a vest, even one of those wounds could kill.
His body was still fighting the pain, feet scrabbled against the weathered wood of the scaffolding, hands balls into fists. Sweat beaded and dripped from his ashen forehead and his neck was flushed crimson as he barely breathed.
Steve hovered over him. "Danny, I know it sucks, but you gotta breathe for me, man."
Danny's mouth opened against closed like a dying fish, but he latched on to Steve's shirt, twisting it with unexpected strength. "Breathe, Danny, please. Don't make me do it for you."
His back arched and finally he drew in a shaky breath as tears licked out of the corners of his eyes. "Good. That's good, keep going."
Danny groped for his arm, and Steve was content to let him claw and scratch if it helped. He called in his location and the 1013.
Leaning over Danny again, Steve cradled his jaw and cheeks firmly in his hands, keeping his head and neck immobilized until the paramedics arrived. He shimmied on his knees through the shards and sparkles of glass and stared into Danny's watery eyes. "Try to be still, brah, and keep breathing. In an out."
"Besides the blinding agony, are you good?"
Danny opened his mouth to speak but wheezed pathetically. Steven shook his head. "That was rhetorical, dude. You know how you love to rant and rave about the most innocuous things in the world? Like my choice of music of the awesomeness of New friggin' Jersey, I feel one of those rants comin' on right now…" Danny's eyes fluttered a little, rolling back. "Hey, none of that. Stay with me, Danno. Grace…doesn't she have a talent show in a few weeks? You got hang around for that, right?"
The detective's eyes opened wider at the mention of his daughter. He saw the firefighters peer through the window and order him off the narrow scaffolding. Steve smiled at Danny, who struggled to focus on him. "Grace needs you, Danno, keeping fighting for her."
Steve squeezed his partner's bloody arm before tearing himself away to let the firefighters work.
-5-0-
The world shrank to a tiny realm of unendurable pain, blinding lights and strange, probing hands touching and pressing and examining. Danny couldn't remember why his chest hurt or even where he was. He just knew that he was so utterly tired and the pain and white-hot lights wouldn't let him sleep.
He couldn't turn his head and he tasted blood and he was petrified.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he wondered what he'd have to do to leave this horrible place, and return to the sandy beaches and random rainbows of Hawaii. It was colorful and vibrant and smelled like flowers and coffee and he could take Grace to school and help her with her book reports.
"Detective Williams, can you squeeze my hand?" A rubbery-slick hand patted his. "Danny, squeeze my hand."
He did so, hoping he could go to sleep.
"Good, sir. Really good. Now, can you open your eyes for me?"
He was too tired to try and the searing light was surrendering to the peaceful, painless black and Danny was sinking away from the torturous pressure and the stoic voices making requests.
The same slick hands were palpating and suddenly there was an abrupt, tearing fire in his gut that pulling a guttural cry from him, and his eyes flared open. Peculiar fuzzy shapes replaced the dark, and the lights were brighter than ever. Danny reached out again, fingers groping for whatever was there before, but he clutched only air. The world opened up a bit to include intense nausea and lightheadedness and the worst migraine of his life.
"Sir, can you tell me if this hurts?" More hands on him, more shredding pain, more screaming.
Strange eyes appeared over him and he sought them out, wanting answers to questions he couldn't form. "Danny," the voice was soft and feminine, "we're worried about some bleeding in your belly and a possible bruising to your heart. We're going to give you some medicine so you can rest, and we'll put a tube in to help you breathe, and we'll have answers for you when you wake up."
He licked his lips, needed to speak, but his arm tingled pleasantly and the pain dissolved, taking this strange world in its wake.
-5-0-
Steve stood sentry outside of the trauma room, arms crossed and face blank. He watched as the nurses and doctors swarmed over his partner, cutting off his clothes, inserting IVs and attaching leads. Danny was barely conscious, immobilized on a backboard and c-collar, but his toes curled and his hands clenched from confusion and the torture of being examined. The floor beneath him dipped and swayed when the doctor forced a tube down Danny's throat with a violence that was never depicted in those medical dramas on television.
But Steve hadn't joined the Navy by chance and he had been trained to deal with rocky, uncharted waters. He closed his eyes, regained his equilibrium and continued to watch, to offer silent support.
"Commander McGarrett?"
"What?"
There was a soft hand on his arm. "You need to come with me, sir."
"I'm not moving until he does," Steve replied coolly.
"With all due respect, sir, you are."
There was a brisk tug on his arm, and Steve McGarrett, Naval Commander and former SEAL, teetered off-balance. He blinked as the hospital hallway rolled like molasses and his stomach wobbled with acid. The nurse pulled him into a small room and pushed him down on the bed. Steve gazed stupidly at his hands, sticky with dried blood, wondering why they were shaking so violently. Steve watched as she wiped his hands and arms clean and uncapped a bottle of Gatorade. He was a little embarrassed when she had to steady it so he could take a few cool, sugary sips without spilling.
"Adrenaline dump and shock. You need to be flat for awhile, Commander." The nurse answered softly. "Your partner is right through those doors, if anything happens, I'll let you know."
"Can you tell me anything now?" Steve looked at her, eyes pleading in ways words couldn't.
He could only see her as an amalgamation of pleasant features: supple lips, pin-straight raven hair in a pristine ponytail, dark eyes and olive skin darkened by the sun. And that right there told him he was a more than a little shocky.
"It's still too early. They're worried about head injuries and broken bones from the fall, and also myocardial and pulmonary contusion and internal bleeding from the GSWs. I know the intubation looks awful, but it's just a precaution."
Steve huffed in disgust. "Going to that office today was supposed to be a precaution and my partner was almost killed."
"He's in good hands, Commander, I promise you that."
With confident movements, she put on a pair of gloves and removed Monroe's gun from his waistband, thumbing on the safety. "This evidence?"
He nodded. Shock blunted the hysteria and the urge to pummel and shoot things. Or start screaming and never stop.
She bagged the gun and locked it in the cabinet and then she unhooked Steve's own gun and holster and set them on a nearby table.
"What are you doing?" He asked when she lifted his legs onto the bed and started to remove his shoes.
"I'm going to check you out, remove the shard of glass from your leg and stitch you up."
His leg? He hadn't noticed that his tan cargo pants were splattered with blood at the thigh, but soaked through just below the knee as a jagged shard of glass had pierced the muscle of his shin. No wonder he wasn't firing on all cylinders.
The nurse moved to his left leg and untied the laces of his shoes and angled it off. Bruising discomfort shot up his leg like a rocket, and hummed hotly in his ankle. He hissed, sucking in a breath.
"Does that hurt?"
It had been a long way down to the scaffolding. "It's fine, nurse."
"Doctor."
"What?"
"My name is Dr. Savannah Jensen, Commander."
"Oh, I'm sorry, doctor. But really the ankle is fine."
She pulled off his sock and raised her eyebrows at the swollen, discolored joint. "Sure it is."
It was ridiculous that she was fussing over minor cuts when Danny wasn't even breathing on his own. He pushed himself up on his elbows, ready to retrieve his gun and debrief Chin and Kono and maybe put a few more bullets in Monroe's corpse…something. Steve was a man of action; and he needed to be busy. He didn't care about his ankle or the shard of glass protruding from his leg.
Dr. Jensen leveled him with a glare. "I've dealt with a lot of tough guys who come in through here and try to deny that they're hurt or refuse medical care because they've watched Rambo one too many times. The only thing is it never works out well for them, and they end up stuck in a bed anyway. Please tell me you are not one of those guys."
Steve eased back onto the bed. "Of course not."
She smiled. "Good. Didn't think so."
-5-0-
It had been a mind-numbingly chaotic night of terror, debriefings with HPD and the governor and waiting for Danny's prognosis. Steve had only stopped home for a shower and a change of clothes. He ventured up the white brick driveway of Rachel and Stan's mansion the next morning, scrubbed a hand over his face in a fruitless attempt to wipe away any traces of exhaustion and guilt and rage, and try to find the energy to smile for Grace. While Danny's daughter no longer associated him with the shooting at the football game, she still didn't seem to like him very much. Rachel answered the door in sundress with Grace a few feet behind her in her school uniform and pigtails.
"Good morning, Steve." She greeted, a little confused. He arched behind him, searching for her ex-husband.
Steve managed a wobbly grin. "Morning, Rachel. Hi, Grace."
"Hello, Commando." She sang, giggling behind her hands.
Steve smiled genuinely. Kids were so weird. "I'm brewing a pot of coffee if you would like some, you look like death warmed ov…" Rachel trailed off, hospitable cheer fading from her face. "Grace, go get your backpack. Now." Grace darted away.
Rachel backpedaled from the door, shaking her head as her breath clamored through her. "No, no, no, no…Steve, please…"
"Rachel, calm down." He stepped into the house and gripped Rachel firmly by her shoulders as she swayed. "Look at me, Rachel. Look right here." Brown eyes met his, already flooded with tears. "He's alive, Rachel. He's alive."
She stared at him, searching his face for the truth before breaking away and stumbling into the kitchen.
Steve followed her and watched as she poured two cups of coffee and handed him one black. She added about a cup of sugar to hers and stirred the scalding liquid with her finger. "I'm not even his wife and I still have to deal with his dreadful profession," she sneered in her accented english. "How badly is he hurt this time?"
He wrung his hands and tried to remember everything the doctors had told him. He wished he had taken notes. "The doctors say he's going to be fine. It could…have been so much worse." He bit his cheek to keep himself in the present, and not back at the window's ledge, thinking his partner was dead.
Rachel's nostrils flared. "You're whacking around the bush, Steve. And I really need details so I can figure out how much to tell my daughter."
"He was shot three times and fell about ten feet through a window." He blurted out, because the image of it was playing over and over in his mind no matter how much he tried to focus on anything else. "He was wearing a vest. He's got a concussion, but no broken bones. There is some internal bleeding and a lacerated kidney, which they're watching, but they believe it will be resolved without surgery. There was no apparent damage to his heart or lungs, but they're also watching that carefully in case anything develops in the next 48 hours. He's a little banged up and cut up from the glass." He ticked off.
Rachel seemed sickened by the long list of injuries. "What does that mean?"
"It means he'll be in the hospital for four days to a week. Surgery is a possibility, but he will recover fully."
The woman Danny had married was fierce in her love of Grace's father. Steve could see it so clearly. She sipped her coffee and struggled for her next words. "…is he in p-pain?"
"No." Steve lied. He'd heard Danny screaming in the exam room.
Rachel drank her coffee. "He was at the shooting at the office building, wasn't he?"
"He saved a lot of lives." Steve replied. "I have to get back to the hospital. I will call you with any updates, I promise."
"You want to know something ironic, Steve? When Danny joined your taskforce, I was thrilled for him. I thought he'd be safer with you, but he's been hurt more in the months he worked for you than the years he spent on the New Jersey PD."
The remark stung more than the stitches in his leg or the sprained ankle aching tightly in the air cast. The members of his team were his responsibility, and yet he seemed to put them in more danger than the average officer, because of his aggressive combat training, and his vendetta with Wo Fat. Steve placed his untouched cup of coffee on the granite countertop and trudged towards the exit.
Rachel didn't stop him.
Grace was sitting on the front porch, far too quietly for the energetic eight-year-old Danny was always boasting about. Steve sat down beside her, squinting at the brightness of the sun. She sniffled beside him, red-faced and quiet.
"Were you listening?"
"Yeah, but I didn't understand all of the words. Is my daddy hurt?"
He had been trained to handle children and tell them horrible things, but Steve somehow wasn't prepared for this or the feeling of his heart breaking in ways he didn't know it could. "Yes," he said honestly. "He hurt his head and he has some bad bruises, but he will be okay."
Grace swiped her arm across her face, stubbornly trying not to cry and failing miserably. She had never looked more like her father. "Can I see him?"
"In a few days," he answered. He knew Danny wouldn't want her at the hospital. Steve didn't either. "He just needs lots of rest right now, but I know he'll call you as soon as he can. You know what, I bet he'd love if you drew him some pictures."
She lit up like a Christmas tree. "I can make tons of pictures because I just got new markers—they came in a huge bucket…and glitter pens with stickers too. Danno got me those."
"They sound really cool." He stood up. "I gotta go, Grace."
"Hey, Commando?"
"Yeah, babe?"
"Can you give my daddy something for me?"
He stooped down, ankle protesting. He wasn't prepared for her to launch herself at him and hug him tightly around the neck. "He likes hugs." She said against his shoulder.
Steve stood up, hugging her tightly, and suddenly understood why Danny moved 6,000 miles to see his daughter two days a week.
-5-0-
Steve trudged through the corridors of the hospital, flashed his badge at the nurse's desk and entered Danny's room that was disconcertingly noisy with the fluttering beep and clicking of all of the monitors.
"I have no idea how they expect you to sleep with all of this noise."
It was hard to recognize his partner when he was so still, face puffed and sallow from the drugs, and scruffier than Steve had ever seen him. The gravity of the past day descended upon him with such intensity it left him a little weak-kneed—the lingering fear that Danny wouldn't be okay or even wake up, how bone-achingly tired he was, the realization that Monroe had killed five people before they'd even reached him.
Steve stumbled into a chair and dropped his head in his hands.
"Boss?" Chin Ho asked softly, entering the room with Kono right behind him.
Boss. It had always been a tongue-in-cheek joke from the beginning. "Sure thing, boss." "I'll get right on it, boss." "You're the boss, boss." He might have made decisions and barked orders, but Five-0 didn't work without the unique perspectives and knowledge of everyone. It all felt so wrong with Danny down.
"Is there anything else to do?"
Kono shook her head. "Everything's tied up for now. HPD is taking care of the back end of the investigation since they have the manpower…" she paused. "Steve, are you okay?"
Danny was shot, three times at center mass, rocking backward, face blank with shock and pain, through the broken window.
"No, Kono, I'm not."
"The doctor said that the sedation was lifted, but he won't be conscious for awhile. Maybe you should go home and get some sleep." Chin suggested.
Steve shook his head. "Nah, I'm good here."
Kono smiled, "That's what we thought. We have a bunch of food in the waiting room. We can't eat in here."
"Lead the way."
Steve was grateful for his team, the fact that he wasn't alone and that Danny was still fighting.